aTOC/Mast_TAR_Summer04 1 9/3/04, 9:16 AM Instructions for Authors T ◆ H ◆ E ALAN ABOUT THE ALAN REVIEW. The ALAN Review is a peer-reviewed (refereed) journal published by the Assembly on REVIEW Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English. It is devoted solely to the field of literature for adolescents. It is published three times per academic year (fall, winter, and spring) and is sent to all members, individual Co-editors James Blasingame, [email protected] and institutional, of ALAN (The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE). Members of ALAN need not be mem- Arizona State University bers of NCTE. Lori Atkins Goodson, THE ALAN REVIEW publishes reviews of and articles on literature for adolescents and the teaching of that literature: [email protected] research studies, papers presented at professional meetings, surveys of the literature, critiques of the literature, articles Wamego Middle School, Wamego, Kansas about authors, comparative studies across genre and/or cultures, articles on ways to teach the literature to adolescents, and interviews of authors. Assistant to the Editors Sarah Morrow YA Book Review Editor Lori Atkins Goodson AUDIENCE. Many of the individual members of ALAN are classroom teachers of English in middle, junior, and senior high schools. Other readers include university faculty members in English and/or Education programs, researchers in Middle School Claudia Katz, National Louis the field of adolescent literature, librarians, authors, publishers, reading teachers and teachers of other related content Connection Editor University areas. ALAN has members in all 50 states and a number of foreign countries. High School Kay Smith, Utah Connection Editor Valley State College PREFERRED STYLE. Manuscripts should usually be no longer than fifteen double-spaced, typed pages. A manuscript submitted for consideration should deal specifically with literature for adolescents and/or the teaching of that literature. Research Connection Jeffrey S. Kaplan, University Editor of Central Florida It should have a clearly defined topic and be scholarly in content, as well as practical and useful to people working with and/or studying adolescents and their literature. Research studies and papers should be treated as articles rather Publishers Connection M. Jerry Weiss, Jersey City than formal reports. Stereotyping on the basis of sex, race, age, etc., should be avoided, as should gender-specific Editor State College, Emeritus terms such as “chairman.” Professional Resource William Broz, Connection Editor University of Northern Iowa MANUSCRIPT FORMAT. Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout, including quotations and bibliographies. Library Connection Diane P. Tuccillo, Mesa Public A title page with author’s name, affiliation, address, and a short professional biographical sketch should be included. Editor Library, Mesa, Arizona The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript pages; however, pages should be numbered. Short quotations, as permitted under “fair use” in the copyright law, must be carefully documented within the manuscript and in the Non Print YAL Jean Brown, Rhode Island bibliography. Longer quotations and complete poems or short stories must be accompanied by of Connection Editor College written permission the copyright owner. Editorial Review Board Lawrence Baines, University of Toledo Author interviews should be accompanied by written permission of the interviewed author to publish the interview Katherine Barr, San Francisco, California in The ALAN Review. Interviewers should indicate to authors that publication is subject to review of an editorial board. Kylene Beers, University of Houston The title of The ALAN Review should not be used to gain an interview. Jean Borren, Northern Arizona University Cynthia A. Bowman, Columbus, Ohio Original short tables and figures should be double-spaced and placed on a separate sheet at the end of the Linda Broughton, University of South Alabama manuscript. Notations should appear in the text for proper placement of tables and figures. Jean E. Brown, Warwick, Rhode Island John “Jack” Bushman, University of Kansas The ALAN Review prefers the use of the Publications Manual of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Michael Cart, Chico, California A 3 1/2-inch IBM compatible disk in a recent version of Word format must accompany all manuscripts. Disks must be Melissa Comer, Cumberland College clearly labeled with author’s name, manuscript title, disk format, and file title. Chris Crowe, Brigham Young University Pat Daniel, University of South Florida SUBMITTING THE MANUSCRIPT. Send three clear copies and a disk of the manuscript to: Kevin Dupree, University of Southern Mississippi Dr. James Blasingame, Co-Editor, The ALAN Review, Department of English/English Education, college of Liberal Arts Joan Elliot, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Sciences, P.O. box 870302, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302. Bonnie Ericson, California State University at Northridge Ted Fabiano, Blue Valley Northwest High School Include a self-addressed stamped envelope to which return stamps are clipped. The manuscript cannot be returned if Karen Ford, Ball State University the envelope and stamps are not included. Articles submitted only by facsimile or e-mail cannot be considered, except Nena Foster-Pritchard, North Olmsted High School, Ohio when sent from overseas. Montye Fuse, Arizona State University Marshall George, Fordham University REVIEW PROCESS. Each manuscript will receive a blind review by the editor and at least two members of the Wendy Glenn, University of Connecticut editorial review board, unless the length, style, or content makes it inappropriate for publication. Usually, authors Gail P. Gregg, Florida International University should expect to hear the results within eight weeks. Manuscripts are judged for the contribution they make to the Robin Denise Groce, Mississippi State University field of adolescent literature, clarity and cohesiveness, timeliness, and freshness of approach. Selection also depends Kay Bushman Haas, Ottawa, Kansas on the manuscript’s contribution to the overall balance of the journal. Kathy Headley, Clemson University Sarah Herz, Westport, Connecticut PUBLICATION OF ARTICLES. The ALAN Review assumes that accepted manuscripts have not been published previ- Ted Hipple, University of Tennessee ously in any other journals and/or books, nor will they be published subsequently without permission of The ALAN Review. Rita Karr, Oklahoma Road Middle School, Maryland Should the author submit the manuscript to more than one publication, he/she should notify The ALAN Review. If a Joan Kaywell, University of South Florida Kathryn Kelly, Radford University submitted or accepted manuscript is accepted by another publication prior to publication in The ALAN Review, the Patricia P. Kelly, Virginia Tech author should immediately withdraw the manuscript from publication in The ALAN Review. Daphne Key, Papillon, Nebraska Manuscripts that are accepted may be edited for clarity, accuracy, readability, and publication style. Teri S. Lesesne, Sam Houston State University Terry C. Ley, Auburn University, Emeritus Upon publication, the author will receive two copies of The ALAN Review in which the article appears. Publication usually Rob Lockhart, Morehead State University occurs within 18 months of acceptance. Caroline McKinney, University of Colorado at Boulder Arlene Harris Mitchell, University of Cincinnati DEADLINES. Please observe these deadlines if you wish to have your article considered for a particular William R. Mollineaux, Sedgwick Middle School, Connecticut issue of The ALAN Review. Elizabeth Poe, University of West Virginia FALL ISSUE Deadline: MAY 15 Suzanne Reid, Emory and Henry College WINTER ISSUE Deadline: OCTOBER 15 Gary Salvner, Youngstown State University Barbara G. Samuels, University of Houston at Clear Lake SPRING ISSUE Deadline: FEBRUARY 15 John S. Simmons, Florida State University, Emeritus Cover credits: The ALAN Review cover was designed by Holly Kelly. Credit lines for individual book jackets as follows: Robert C. Small, Radford University Elaine C. Stephens, Michigan FEED. Copyright © 2002 by M.T. Anderson. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Inc. Cambridge MA. FAERIE WARS Barbara Stover, Chatfield Senior High School by Herbie Brennan. Copyright 2003. Jacket Design by Lizzy Bromley. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury USA Lois Stover, St. Mary’s College of Maryland Children’s Books. STRAVAGANZA: CITY OF STARS. by Mary Hoffman. Copyright © 2003. Jacket design by Ian Butterworth. Jacket illustration Alan Teasley, Durham, North Carolina by Carol Lawson. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books. THE SHAKESPEARE STEALER by Gary Blackwood. Cover illustration copyright © 2000 by Greg Call. Used by permission of Puffin Books, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Mary Ann Tighe, Troy State University Group, A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. All rights reserved. Jacket illustration copyright © Ellis Vance, Fresno County Office of Education 2002 by Christian Birmingham from The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funk. Published by Scholastic, Ind. by arrangement with The Chicken House, Elizabeth Watts, Broward County, Florida UK. Used by permission. Jacket design copyright © 2003 by David Caplan from The Beast by Walter Dean Myers. Published by Scholastic Ann Wilder, Durham, North Carolina Press, a division of Scholastic, Inc. Used by permission. THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton. Cover illustration copyright © 1997 by Robert Hunt. Carole Williams, St. Louis, Missouri Used by permission of Puffin Books, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 345 Hudson Susan N. Wood, Florida State University Street, New York, NY 10014. All rights reserved. Jacket art copyright © 2000 by Joe Cepeda from Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Geri Yaccino, St. Charles Middle School, Illinois Published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic, Inc. Used by permission. Jacket art copyright © by David Shannon from The Young Connie Zitlow, Ohio Wesleyan University Man and the Sea by Rodman Philbrick. Published by The Blue Sky Press, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc. Used with permission.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

aTOC/Mast_TAR_Summer04 2 9/3/04, 9:16 AM JimLori BlasingameGoodson & Jim& Lori Blasingame Goodson

From the Editors

s the song says, “School’s out for the sum- In this issue’s Library Connection, we welcome mer,” and summer has truly been a great time guest columnist Karen Peterson, who provides ample A to load up on the latest in young adult information about an outstanding city library’s web literature, grab a frosty glass of iced tea, and settle page designed to link teens with books. She details into that comfortable chair by the pool. the teen web page created by the City of Mesa, OK, maybe your summer hasn’t been as tranquil Arizona, in an effort to encourage other cities and as all that, but YA lit can certainly take you miles schools to generate their own web pages. We also away from the syllabus begging for revision, lesson welcome the first column from our Middle School plans needing to be written, books waiting to be Connection columnist, Claudia Katz, and her co- catalogued and filed, and all the around-the-house author, Karen Boran. chores, as well. And then there’s our focus on African American And, while you’re thumbing through the great mothers and daughters. KaaVonia Hinton-Johnson’s young adult literature that is hitting the shelves, we article examines mother-daughter relationships in hope you will enjoy our issue, which focuses on the contemporary young adult novels, through black past, present, and future of young adult literature. feminist theory. Speaking of the future of young adult literature, we Pam B. Cole’s article demonstrates the current and feature an extensive interview with a rising star in the future uses of young adult literature, and the genre’s field, Kevin Brooks, as well as reviews of his most abilities to help teenagers, especially boys, maneuver recent books, Kissing the Rain and Lucas. You’re also through their first relationships. welcome to dive into our wide array of articles dealing Truly, young adult literature has a rich past, a with the past—from Debra Seely, author of books set robust present, and an ever-expanding future. We’re in 19th century Kansas ranching country, discussing excited about where the genre has been, its current the role of historical fiction, to Eleanor Ramrath vitality, and the unlimited possibilities that loom in Garner sharing her insights into the use of memoirs in the future. adolescent literature, including her notable autobio- Ye s, summer is ending, but we hope you’ll agree graphical work, Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in that there are plenty of lessons within the pages of this Hitler’s Germany recalling her time as a young girl in issue. Grab a chair and enjoy. Hitler’s World War II Germany. We also include features on both award-winning authors.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

b3_6TAR_Summer04 3 9/3/04, 9:15 AM The ALAN Preview Fall 2004 Workshop: The Art of Young Adult Literature

he fall 2004 ALAN Workshop is scheduled for conference, the tone of which will be set by keynote Nov. 22 and 23 in Indianapolis, Ind., and the speaker Stephen Roxburgh, the distinguished pub- T lineup is filled with well-known authors, lisher of Front Street Books and staunch advocate of publishers, and experts in the field of young adult literary fiction. Other speakers include the likes of literature. The activities actually kick off with the Printz Award-winner An Na, Printz Honor Award annual breakfast featuring author E.L. Konigsburg on recipients Jennifer Donnelley, Garret Freymann-Weyr, Saturday, Nov. 20. Helen Frost, Jan Greenberg, Terry Trueman, and Ellen But, before you head to Indianapolis, we’ve Wittlinger; National Book Award-winner Han Nolan, provided this workshop preview to give you a sam- Newbery Medalist Christopher Paul Curtis, 2004 ALAN pling of what to expect. Then get your suitcase out Award recipient Jacqueline Woodson, two-time Eisner and start packing.—JB & LG Award-winner Eric Shanower, and many, many more. They will address an array of topics that range from The Art of Young Adult Literature: “The Art of Story” to “Discovering Sexual Identity in A Welcome from ALAN President, Literature,” from “The Art of the Graphic Novel” to “The Art of Poetry” and from “The Art of the Short Michael Cart Story” to “The Art of the Novel.” Indeed, virtually Welcome to the 2004 ALAN Workshop. The theme I’ve every aspect of the now artful and newly expansive selected—“The Art of Young Adult Literature”— field of young adult literature will be addressed. reflects my long-held belief that YA has come of age As a result, the conference is, admittedly, an and that if the term “Young Adult Literature” might ambitious one and one that is very, very tightly once have been regarded as an oxymoron (like “jumbo scheduled. It will invite your patience and occasional shrimp” and “military intelligence”), that surely is no indulgence with the briskness of its pace and the— longer the case. For the genre is now arguably the well, ampleness of its content. To accommodate that, liveliest in publishing, enriched and informed by so please note that we will be starting at 8:00 both many dynamic trends, artistic innovations, and Monday and Tuesday mornings. examples of creative risk-taking that I do not hesitate If it all seems, from time to time, a bit overwhelm- to call this a new “Golden Age” of young adult ing, it will, I promise you, never be dull. And it will literature. also be a continuous exercise in intellectual excite- I hope you’ll find proof of this extravagant claim ment and personal and professional growth. in the workshop that has been assembled for you. I look forward to sharing this excitement and to More than fifty authors, editors, and experts in the greeting each of you in Indianapolis! field will participate in an extraordinarily content-rich Michael Cart, ALAN President

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

b3_6TAR_Summer04 4 9/3/04, 9:15 AM 2004 ALAN WORKSHOP (TENTATIVE) SCHEDULE 4:20-5:00: THE ART OF MIDDLE SCHOOL LITERATURE David Lubar Monday, 11/22/04: Gerald Morris 8:00-8:10: Welcome and a Few Words about ALAN Rod Philbrick Michael Cart, ALAN President Sarah Weeks 8:10-8:20: A Few Words about the ALAN Review Tuesday, 11/23/04: James Blasingame and Lori Goodson, 8:00-8:40: ARTFUL NEW YA IMPRINTS Co-Editors Patty Campbell. Moderator 8:20-8:50: KEYNOTE ADDRESS Eden Edwards (Graphia) Stephen Roxburgh, Publisher, Front Street David Levithan (PUSH) Sharon November (Firebird) 8:50-9:40: THE ART OF FICTION. I Susan Van Metre (Amulet) Carolyn Coman Garret Freymann-Weyr 8:40-9:05: THE ART OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL An Na Eric Shanower Han Nolan 9:05-9:55: THE ART OF TEACHING YA WRITING Ellen Wittlinger Ann Angel 9:40-10:20: THE ART OF FANTASY M.T. Anderson L.G. Bass An Na Steven Gould Anita Riggio Edith Pattou Jackie Woodson E. Rose Sabin 9:55-10:10: COFFEE BREAK 10:20-10:35: COFFEE BREAK 10:10-10:50: THE ART OF HISTORICAL FICTION 10:35-11:00: ADULT AUTHORS FOR YOUNG ADULTS. I Julie Chibbaro Clive Barker Jennifer Donnelley Kelly Easton 11:00-11:40: ART IN LITERATURE Trudy Krisher Jan Greenberg Kathe Koja 10:50-11:15: ADULT AUTHORS FOR YOUNG ADULTS. II Tracy Mack Joyce Maynard 11:40-12:00: THE ART OF POETRY 11:15-11:55: THE ART OF GENRE FICTION Paul B. Janeczko Carl Deuker Lynne Ewing 12:00-1:00: LUNCH William Sleator 1:00-1:40: THE ART OF THE NOVEL IN VERSE 11:55-1:05: LUNCH Helen Frost Paul B. Janeczko 1:05-1:30: THE ART OF HUMOR AND HEART Sonya Sones Christopher Paul Curtis 1:40-2:30: THE ART OF FICTION. II. New Narrative Strategies 1:30-2:10: FINDING SEXUAL IDENTITY IN YA FICTION Terry Davis Brent Hartinger Jaclyn Moriarty David Levithan Lauren Myracle Jackie Woodson Terry Trueman Sharon Dennis Wyeth Hilary Frank 2:10-2:30: COFFEE BREAK 2:30-2:50: COFFEE BREAK 2:30-3:20: BREAKOUT SESSIONS 2:50-3:40: BREAKOUT SESSIONS Pamela Sissi Carroll: The Art and Science of Steven T. Beckmore: YA Literature and the Pre- Young Adult Literature Service Teacher Kristin Fletcher-Spear: Graphic Reads Jim Blasingame: The Art of Humor in YA Books Wendy Glenn: Hole in My Life (and Theirs) Lois Buckman: Beyond Prose Lori & Todd Goodson: The Art of Performance Lisa A. Hazlett: Examining Artistry in YA Patrick Jones: A Core Collection for Young Adults Literature Jeff Kaplan: Looking on the Inside Ted Hipple: How Do We Evaluate Young Adult Joan Kaywell & Neil Shusterman: What Daddy Novels Did—What Teachers Do Teri Lesesne: Art and YA Literature Lois Stover: The Art of Jacqueline Woodson Walter Mayes: The Best New YA Books Alan B. Teasley: Out of the Closet and Onto the John Noell Moore Shelves! M. Jerry Weiss: All the World’s a Stage—or Is It? 3:20-3:55 Panel: HEARING NEW VOICES 3:40-4:20: THE ART OF THE SHORT STORY Mark Delaney Sharon Flake Brian James Marilyn Singer Patrick Jones Ellen Wittlinger Ned Vizzini 3:55-4:00: Patty Campbell, A Preview of ALAN 2005 & Farewell

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

b3_6TAR_Summer04 5 9/3/04, 9:16 AM Call for Manuscripts

The Art of Adolescent Literature Winter 2005. The theme for our 2005 winter issue, The Art of Adolescent Literature, is intended to accompany and develop the theme of the 2004 ALAN Workshop and to provide a means for examining the artistry inherent in adolescent literature and its teaching, in any form that bears examination or discussion. This theme is meant to be broad enough to cover a wide range of topics and flexible and open enough for many different interpretations. Some ideas for manuscript topics might be found in the titles of author presentations at the 2004 ALAN Workshop in Indianapolis, which include: New Narra- tive Strategies, The Art of the Novel, Adult Authors for Young Adults. Art in Literature, The Art of Poetry, The Novel in Verse, The Art of Fantasy, The Art of the Short Story, The Art of Middle School Literature, The Art of Teaching YA Writing, The Art of Historical Fiction, The Art of Horror Fiction, Sexual Identity in YA Fiction, and New Voices in YA Literature. Manuscripts dealing with the artistry of the authors (listed below) appearing at the 2004 ALAN Workshop are also welcome. The deadline for manuscripts for the winter 2004 issue is October 15. Please see the Instructions for Authors page for specific instructions about submitting manuscripts.

M.T. Anderson Lynne Ewing Trudy Krisher Anita Riggio Ann Angel Sharon Flake David Levithan E. Rose Sabin Clive Barker Hilary Frank David Lubar Eric Shanower L.G. Bass Garret Freymann-Weyr Tracy Mack Marilyn Singer Julie Chibbaro Helen Frost Joyce Maynard William Sleator Carolyn Coman Steven Gould Jaclyn Moriarty Sonya Sones Christopher Paul Curtis Jan Greenberg Gerald Morris Terry Trueman Terry Davis Brent Hartinger Lauren Myracle Ned Vizzini Mark Delaney Brian James An Na Sarah Weeks Carl Deuker Paul B. Janeczko Han Nolan Ellen Wittlinger Jennifer Donnelley Patrick Jones Edith Pattou Jacqueline Woodson Kelly Easton Kathe Koja Rodman Philbrick Sharon Dennis Wyeth

2005 Spring/Summer theme: A Road Less Traveled (Deadline February 15) This theme is intended to solicit articles about young adult literature and its use that examine people or paths in young adult literature that differ from the norm or majority. This theme is meant to be open to interpretation and support a broad range of subtopics, but some possibilities include examination and discussion of innovative authors and their work, pioneers or turning points in the history of the genre and new literary forms. We welcome and encourage other creative interpretations of this theme.

2005 Fall theme: Finding My Way (Deadline May 15) This theme is intended to solicit articles about young adult literature and its use dealing with the search for self. This theme is meant to be open to interpretation and support a broad range of subtopics, but some possibilities include examination and discussion of the approach an author or group of authors take to leading protagonists down the path to self discovery, comparisons of how this is accomplished across subgenres of young adult literature, or how young adult literature compares to developmental or adolescent psychology. We welcome and encourage other creative interpretations of this theme.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

b3_6TAR_Summer04 6 9/3/04, 9:16 AM Karen Peterson The Library Connection

Teens, Literature, and the Web

ho is more “web savvy” “College and Career,” “Real Life,” more.” Web pages offer teen than today’s teens? They “Get Involved,” “Teen ‘Zines,” advisory groups a great opportunity W have grown up using “Teen Takes,” and “Kickin’ Back.” to post book reviews to encourage computers and the Internet. A There is a wealth of information in other teens to read. recent study conducted by Yahoo, each of these sections, but “Teen “Born to be Wired,” shows that Takes” and “Books and Poetry” are Reading Lists 82% of teens have a computer and the sections that most lend them- 78% use the web to help with selves to books, reading, and teen Under the main heading, schoolwork. It also shows teens reviews. “Books and Poetry,” information spend more time on the computer can be found in a number of than using any other media subsections. The first one includes Teen Takes (including TV!). What better place reading lists by grade level and to help teens find good things to Teen Takes is a volunteer teen various subjects. Some of the read than the web? In this article, advisory group sponsored by the subject areas are “Classics,” we will look at how the City of City of Mesa Library. The group “Historical Fiction,” “The Holo- Mesa Library (Mesa, Arizona) is reorganizes at the beginning of caust,” and “Fantasy.” Teens using their “Teens” web page to each school year to create a interested in the Holocaust might connect teens and books. From it, dynamic, fluid membership. Teen use this list to find a title that perhaps you will get some good Takes helps with the look and appeals to them. Good Night ideas to start or expand your school content of our web page. They also Maman, by Norma Fox Mazer, or library web page for teens. write reviews for movies, restau- would be one great choice. In this Our “Teens” web page is about rants, hangouts, music, and, of poignant story, Karin and Marc, a four years old and is located at course, books! For example, a Jewish brother and sister, are in . Staff input, a member of this year’s group has hiding in France during World War dedicated Webmaster, and a reviewed Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, II. They are forced to decide volunteer teen web page advisory about an unforgettable character whether to escape to America group have made this a site of who has the courage to “be without their ill mother. Many which our library is proud. You will herself.” There are also a couple of additional quality titles for teens on notice a focus on literature and reviews of the popular adult title, this subject are included. reading themes throughout the The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, If teen readers click on the “8th “Teens” page. which a teen reviewer describes as Grade Reading List,” they might The main page is divided up “one of the best reads of this year. read a description of the book Belle into sections, which consist of It is so mysterious, so intelligent; Prater’s Boy, by Ruth White, in “Homework,” “Books and Poetry,” each page keeps you yearning for which a young boy’s mother

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

c7_10TAR_Summer04 7 9/3/04, 9:28 AM disappears and he must live with poetry through this subject by by a Young Adult Library Services his grandparents. He and his reading Behind the Wheel: Poems Association (YALSA) committee to cousin, Gypsy, who lives next door, about Driving, by Janet S. Wong. recognize excellence in literature become great friends and help each for young adult books, is a popular other try to understand the secrets Open Shelf choice. Teens can read all about and mysteries which envelope them both the winners and honor books The City of Mesa Library has a both. This wonderful, heart- from our link, which connects them volunteer opportunity for teens warming book of friendship might to the winning titles for each year. called the Young Adult Advisory otherwise be overlooked. The 2004 Printz winner, The Council (YAAC). This group meets Another potentially missed First Part Last, by Angela Johnson, twice a month and talks about the topic for pleasure reading might be is an extraordinary novel about a books that they are reading. They the classics. Through the web page, sixteen-year-old boy who is the also write book reviews, which are teens can peruse the annotated father of an infant named Feather. published in Open Shelf, a newslet- titles on “The Classics” list and find His struggle to take care of his ter produced by members. Open one that appeals to them. Books on daughter and his moments of shear Shelf is published once a month this list include such great titles as joy and love for her are depicted during the school year, and YAAC The Red Badge of Courage, by here with grace and brevity. Honor members produce a “mega” Stephen Crane, The Awakening, by titles for this year include A summer issue. Both current and Kate Chopin, and Rebecca, by Northern Light, by Jennifer back issues are available on the Daphne DuMaurier. Since high Donnelly, an acclaimed historical web page and are also distributed school students must read some of novel set in 1906 and based on a in Mesa’s junior and senior high the classics for school anyway, this true story. In this book a young girl, schools. list can also help narrow down attempting to leave her life of If a teen happens to click on choices for assignments. poverty behind, takes a job at a Open Shelf for March 2004, he or fancy hotel in the mountains and she would be able to read an becomes embroiled in a murder Teen Poetry Reading List eloquent review of The Goose Girl, mystery. Other 2004 honor titles are by Shannon Hale. This is a retelling This reading list happens to be The Earth, My Butt, and Other of the fairy tale by the Brothers one of the most popular on our web Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler Grimm, featuring Ani, a strong page. Many teens enjoy poetry, so in which Virginia, a heavy girl in a female character who is a crown details are included on a wide family of thin people, tries to deal princess. On the way to her variety of poetry books in our with her own self image, and Fat marriage in another kingdom, she library specifically for them, such Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going, is overthrown by her lady-in- as What Have You Lost?, edited by about the friendship between a waiting and is forced to become a Naomi Shihab Nye, a collection of troubled loner and a legendary servant, tending geese, until she poems that explore all kinds of loss, punk guitar player. All of these can find a way to get back what is and I Wouldn’t Thank You for a titles explore issues of family and rightfully hers. A newsletter like Valentine: Poems for Young Femi- finding your own place in the Open Shelf is a perfect way for nists, edited by Carol Ann Duffy, world, each in a unique and teens to share book reviews like which explores the varied facets of original way. They would appeal to this one online. Teachers can even the female experience. Poetry for different types of readers but are print them out and use them in the sports minded is included in the still all recognized as quality their classrooms! book, The Basket Counts, by Arnold literature for teens, as are past Adoff, where artwork and poetic winners. Many teens have discov- Award Winning Books text describe the movement and ered these titles through our web feel of the game of basketball. Award winning books are an page link. Many teens have driving on their obvious place to look for good Teens’ Top Ten, also sponsored minds, and they can even explore reading. The Printz Award, chosen by YALSA, is an exciting new way

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

c7_10TAR_Summer04 8 9/3/04, 9:28 AM for teens to have their voices heard. pages. Among the previous winners The “Outstanding Books for the Teens do the nominating for this list in the Teen category in Arizona are College Bound” link provides a during the year and then get to vote some very familiar titles: Stargirl, comprehensive listing of books on a for their favorite books during Teen by Jerry Spinelli, Holes, by Louis variety of subjects which are Read Week. The first official year Sachar, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, selected for inclusion by a commit- for this participatory program was and Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson tee from YALSA. “Literature and 2003, and teens were actually able Levine, just to name a few. The Language Arts” is just one of the to vote from our web page link. winning title for 2004 is The Thief subject areas covered, and within Some of the teens’ favorites from Lord, by Cornelia Funke, a fantasy this section is a rich variety of high last year were Second Summer of story set in the magical underworld quality titles. Examples are In the the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares, of Venice. This was also chosen as Time of Butterflies, by Julia The First Part Last, by Angela a Teens’ Top Ten winner. Alvarez, which depicts the coura- Johnson (2004 Printz winner), and geous story of four sisters who After by Francine Prose. Another Books and Reading Links work to help liberate the Domini- notable favorite, True Confessions of can Republic from the rule of a A Heartless Girl, by Martha Brooks, A potentially rich section of ruthless dictator, and Speak, by is a beautifully written book about any web page for teens is the links Laurie Halse Anderson, in which a the effect a young girl, with many to other pages, and ours is no young girl stops speaking because problems of her own, has on a exception. There are so many great of an awful secret she is keeping. small community to which she has links for subjects relating to books “Reading Rants” is a site which run away. and reading here. For example, offers “out of the ordinary” anno- Among the 2004 nominees is there are literary criticism and book tated reading lists for teens. An Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale, analysis sites, graphic novel interesting list on their site is called mentioned earlier. Seeing the same reviews, college-bound reading “Historical Fiction for Hipsters.” title endorsed by teens in two suggestions, booklists, book clubs, This is a good list of books includ- separate sources makes it an and much more. ing the previously mentioned Printz intriguing choice. Another exciting Click on “Booklists for Young honor book, A Northern Light, by nominee for 2004 is a new sensa- Adults,” and you will find a site Jennifer Donnelly. Two other very tion in the fantasy genre, Eragon, with a plethora of lists. There are notable choices are Fever 1793, by by Christopher Paolini, who wrote lists on every subject imaginable. Laurie Halse Anderson, about a the book when he was a teen. This There is a list of books for boys, teenage girl coping with the horrors first installment in the Inheritance which named a couple of my of the yellow fever epidemic in Trilogy is about young Eragon, who favorites: Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, 1793 Philadelphia, and Year of finds himself on an adventure after a survival story about a boy who Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by discovering a blue stone that turns finds himself alone in the Canadian Geraldine Brooks, which depicts a out to be a dragon’s egg. The teen wilderness with only a small year in a young woman’s life nominator says of the book’s hatchet to help him, and Someone during the plague epidemic of 1666 setting: “The world is reminiscent Was Watching, by David Patneaude, England. of Tolkien, but not as complex and in which a teenage boy is the only person who does not believe that more human, thereby appealing to Poetry Websites a larger number of teens.” his small sister drowned and must The Arizona Young Readers’ take action himself to find and save We have linked numerous Award for Teens is another option her. These are both exciting books poetry web sites on our Teens page. for young adults to have their say, that have definite appeal for young “Poetry 180,” a poem-a-day website and like Teens’ Top Ten, it is teen boys, especially those not too for American high schools, was featured on our web page. Many thrilled with reading, and many created by Billy Collins, former poet other states have similar programs, other titles like them can be found laureate for the United States. This which could be linked on web through booklist links. site was designed to help teens read

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

c7_10TAR_Summer04 9 9/3/04, 9:28 AM and listen to poetry. “Anthology” is A Final Note Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. an Arizona-based poetry magazine Doubleday, 2003. If you want to attract teens to link where teens can find out about Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Bantam books and reading in new and Books, 1981, 1899. current contests and events. different ways, a school or library Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of “Magnetic Poetry” is so much Courage. Modern Library, 1993. web page that includes plenty of fun! Check out this virtual version Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. resources may be just the way to of the popular refrigerator game Harcourt, Inc., 2003. go. Talk to your school or library and all the other links in our Poetry Duffy, Carol Ann, editor. I Wouldn’t Thank Webmaster, and see if you can You for a Valentine: Poems for Young websites section. develop a site to fit the needs of Feminists. Holt, 1993. “Post-a-Poem” is a new and your teens. Just remember three DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca. popular addition to our web page’s Charnwood, 1938. important guidelines: Keep it poetry section. Teens can submit Funke, Cornelia. The Thief Lord. Scholas- current, keep it interesting, and their original poetry, following our tic, 2002. keep it fun! posted guidelines, to be considered Going, K.L. Fat Kid Rules the World. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003. for publication on the web page. A Karen Peterson has over twenty-five Hale, Shannon. The Goose Girl. poetry showcase like this could be years of experience in public, aca- Bloomsbury, 2003. set up on any school or library web Johnson, Angela. The First Part Last. demic, and special libraries. She has Simon and Schuster, 2003. page. worked the last five years as a Youth Levine, Gail Carson. Ella Enchanted. Services Librarian for the City of Mesa HarperCollins, 1997. “Getting Published” Library in Arizona. Karen works with Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Houghton Mifflin, Websites the library’s Webmaster on the “Kids” 1993. and “Teens” web pages. She also Mackler, Carolyn. The Earth, My Butt, and Talented teens can find out works with the Teen Takes young Other Round Things. Candlewick Press, how to get their book reviews, adult web advisory group. For more 2003. poetry, stories, and other writings information about web sites for teens, Mazer, Norma Fox. Good Night, Maman. published in this section of our web contact her at karen.peterson@ Harcourt Brace, 1999. page. There are a number of great cityofmesa.org. Nye, Naomi Shibab, editor. What Have You Lost? Greenwillow Books, 1993. places through which to get Paolini, Christopher. Eragon. Alfred A. published, including Teen Ink, a Books mentioned: Knopf, 2003. monthly print magazine, website, Adoff, Arnold. The Basket Counts. Simon Patneaude, David. Someone Was and Schuster, 2000. and book series all written by teens Watching. Whitman, 2003. Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of Butterflies. for teens. There is also a link here Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. Bradbury Press, Algonquin Books, 1994. 1987. to our listing of “Writing Tools.” Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever, 1793. Sachar, Louis. Holes. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, Sites like “The Grammar Lady,” Simon and Schuster, 2000. 1998. “Researchpaper.com,” “Easybib,” Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. Farrar, Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl. Alfred A. Knopf, “A+Research and Writing,” Straus, Giroux, 1999. 2000. Brashares, Ann. Second Summer of the White, Ruth. Belle Prater’s Boy. Farrar, “Citation Styles Online,” and Sisterhood. Delacorte, 2003. “Noodletools” can be found here to Straus, Giroux, 1996. Brooks, Geraldine. Year of Wonders: A Wong, Janet S. Behind the Wheel: Poems provide lots of help improving Novel of the Plague. Viking, 2001. About Driving. Margaret K. McElderry writing skills. Brooks, Martha. True Confessions of a Books, 1999. Heartless Girl. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2003.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

c7_10TAR_Summer04 10 9/3/04, 9:28 AM Jeanne McGlinn

Rags to Riches: The Horatio Alger Theme in Adolescent Novels about the Immigrant Experience

“Only fools laugh at Horatio Alger, and his poor boys who The Horatio Alger Hero: Ragged Dick make good. The wiser man who thinks twice about that sterling author will realize that Alger is to America what In Ragged Dick Alger made a homeless orphan Homer was to the Greeks.” (Nathanael West and Boris into a hero who became the prototype for the hun- Ingster, 1940) dreds of heroes Alger created in the next thirty years. n 1867 Horatio Alger’s story of Ragged Dick began The novel covers the hero’s transformation from a as a twelve-part serial in the magazine Student and ragged, homeless boy of the streets to a respectable ISchoolmate, but it became so popular that he clerk with a salary of ten dollars per week. Dick’s eventually published it as his first novel. Alger went fortunes improve because he follows advice, works on to write over one hundred novels in the second hard to acquire an education, and takes advantage of half of the nineteenth century using the formula he every opportunity. He also has the essential prerequi- worked out in Ragged Dick. While he never achieved site to success—good character. The narrator describes the literary fame he sought, his stories struck a chord Dick: in the dreams of the American people. Edward He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He Stratemeyer, who started an influential syndicate of would not steal, or cheat, or impose upon younger boys, children’s series books in 1883, read Alger’s novels as but was frank and straight-forward, manly and self-reliant. a young boy and set out to write similar stories which His nature was a noble one and had saved him from all continue to be highly popular even today (Johnson mean faults (43-44). 33). E.D. Hirsch included Horatio Alger in his 1987 list Dick puts the welfare of others ahead of himself. of ideas that form part of our cultural heritage in He helps other homeless boys like Johnny Nolan, who Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to doesn’t have enough money for food; Henry Fosdick, Know, and the “rags to riches” theme shows no sign of who needs lodging and clothing; and Tom Wilkins and losing its attraction. Like an archetypal fairy tale, his mother, who are being evicted. Alger’s story of how a poor boy can move from the In addition to his virtue, Dick has “a frank, fringes to become a respected member of society lives straight-forward manner” (40) that leads people to on in contemporary young adult stories depicting the trust him despite his shabby appearance. Such trust struggles of immigrants to the United States. This helps him get shoe-shine customers as well as other “rags to riches” theme provides the basic plot and opportunities. For example, a gentleman asks him to character motivation in two recent young adult novels, guide his nephew around the city for a day because he Breaking Through, by Francisco Jiménez (2001) and likes Dick’s honest looks (57). His wit and ability to Double Luck, by Lu Chi Fa (2001). laugh at himself and his circumstances also put people

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

d11-15_TAR_Summer04 11 9/3/04, 9:27 AM at ease. He tells one of his customers, “I have to pay to the narrator, Dick “had perseverance, and was not such a big rent for my manshun up on Fifth Avenoo, easily discouraged. He had made up his mind he must that I can’t afford to take less than ten cents a shine” know more, and was not disposed to complain of the (41). When asked about his ragged clothes, Dick says, difficulty of the task” (139). All this hard work pays “This coat once belonged to General Washington [. . .] off. When a grateful father wants to reward Dick, he . He wore it all through the Revolution, and it got torn learns about Dick’s difficult history and recently some, ‘cause he fit so hard [. . .] if you’d like it, sir, to acquired ability to write and calculate figures. The remember General Washington by, I’ll let you have it father hires Dick as a clerk, and he takes his first step reasonable” (41). towards financial success. Dick is enterprising when it comes to business. He Alger’s moral in this story is clear. Luck doesn’t has “street smarts” which save him from being duped, take the place of good character, initiative, and an although he has no formal education. When asked if education. According to Gary Scharnhorst, Alger used he has read the Bible, Dick says, “I aint much on the same basic outline in all his stories, drawing readin’. It makes my head hurt” (72). But Dick has heavily on the models of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobi- aspirations. He tells Frank Whitney, a patron’s nephew ography and Dickens’s novels. In a typical story, the who became a friend, that he doesn’t always want to hero is be a shoe-shine boy. “I’d like to be a office boy, and forced to struggle for a livelihood [. . .] enters the City, both learn business, and grow up ‘spectable” (73). Frank a fabled land of opportunity and a potentially corrupting advises Dick, “A good many distinguished men have environment, where he [. . .] [struggles] to maintain his once been poor boys. There’s hope for you Dick, if social respectability, to clear his or another’s name of false you’ll try” (75). Dick is willing to work hard, but accusations, to gain a measure of economic independence Frank advises him that he must work in “the right [. . .] . At length, the hero earns the admiration of an adult patron who rewards him with elevated social station, usu- way.” Frank says, “You began in the right way when ally a job or reunion with his patrician family [. . .] . ( 67-68) you determined never to steal, or to do anything mean or dishonorable, however strongly tempted to do so. Forced to fend for himself in an unsympathetic world, That will make people have confidence in you when the hero must have drive and a ready wit. At the same they come to know you. But, in order to succeed well, time he should be modest, responding to his circum- you must manage to get as good an education as you stances with bravado, but not looking for credit. He can” (89). may have moments of despondency, but he does not Dick is also modest. He readily admits that he become alienated, nor does he let circumstances doesn’t have the manners required in “genteel” society defeat him. He transforms his difficulties into opportu- and never puts on airs. After Dick risks his life to save nities to prove his character—his courage, bravery, a child who has fallen in the river, he feels uncomfort- and resourcefulness. In Alger’s stories heroes succeed able when the father praises him. The narrator writes, in going from “rags to riches” because they are “Our hero was ready enough to speak on most essentially good. occasions, but always felt awkward when he was Alger hoped that the stories of poor and homeless praised” (210). Because of his self-effacing modesty, boys would move people to support charitable Dick benefits from the advice of young Frank Whitney institutions for such boys and would also inspire the and his uncle and sets out on a course of self-improve- boys themselves to persevere and to develop habits of ment. He strikes a bargain with Henry Fosdick, good character and ambition (Kanfer). He created a another orphan, to become his tutor. Dick says, “I mythic rite of passage that connects the pursuit of can’t read much more’n a pig; and my writin’ looks success with good character. This idea of success like hens’ tracks. I don’t want to grow up knowin’ no continues to inspire writers of adolescent fiction more’n a four-year-old boy. If you’ll teach me readin’ including in recent multicultural fiction when the and writin’ evenin’s, you shall sleep in my room every heroes comes from other cultures. In the end, just as night” (135). Dick studies with the same diligence and in Ragged Dick, the struggles of these heroes become good humor he applies to his daily living. According an emblem of the gospel of success.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

d11-15_TAR_Summer04 12 9/3/04, 9:27 AM Character and Hard Work Pay Off ages him to work on his writing. She tells him, “[If] you continue working as hard as you have, you’re In his autobiographical novel, Breaking Through, going to succeed” (99). She also introduces him to a Francisco Jiménez shows how the hero’s character love of reading when she assigns him to read The and hard work pay off with the opportunity to pursue Grapes of Wrath and, identifying with the characters, an education. Francisco, although not an orphan like he finds he cannot get the novel out of his mind (102). Dick, is homeless in a symbolic sense because he is an In his senior year Francisco is elected student illegal immigrant in the United States. He faces body president. He dreams of continuing his education deportation, and lives “in constant fear” (1). But what even though it seems that Francisco’s dreams are no Francisco fears most of all is not being able to attend match for economic realities. How can a Mexican, an school. He says, “As I got older, my fear of being illegal alien, achieve success? How can he afford to go deported grew. I did not want to return to Mexico to college when he needs to help his family? Just as in because I liked going to school [. . .] I knew there was Ragged Dick, a patron steps in—his high school no school in El Rancho Blanco” (2). So even when the counselor shows him scholarship and loan applica- family teeters on the brink of economic disaster, tions and secures his father’s permission to proceed. Francisco works harder, takes on another part-time Francisco’s determination and work have not gone job, and dedicates himself to his studies. unnoticed. When he is accepted to college and gets Like Alger’s heroes, Francisco has strong moral scholarship money, his father affirms the gospel of character. When he and his family are forced to live hard work (179). Francisco’s life is a moral emblem. across the border for a short time, Francisco steals a His character, determination, and resourcefulness have chunk of fool’s gold. He was fascinated by “The shape led to success. and color of the stones [. . .] . They looked like gold nuggets” (10). Immediately, he is sorry. He thinks Strong Character and a Dream of about throwing the rock away, but decides to return it Coming to America as quickly as possible and is glad he did the right thing. Double Luck: Memoirs of a Chinese Orphan, also In school Francisco wants to be accepted but most autobiographical like Breaking Through, tells a similar of all he wants the respect that comes from being at “rags to riches” story. Chi Fa faces unbelievable the head of the class, so he applies himself diligently. obstacles, but in the end he is rewarded with success, Even when he is at work after school, he studies the opportunity to immigrate to America. Chi Fa is an spelling words or memorizes poems taped to his orphan. His first memories are the deaths of his father broom handle. He finds a copy of Dr. Doolittle at the and broken-hearted mother which left him homeless dump and reads five pages every night. Francisco is a and alone: “[T]he bad fortune of two untimely deaths young Ben Franklin, intent on a program of self- left me an orphan, a small boy in a world where no improvement. Entering high school, he tells his one wanted me” (5). He is passed from one family to guidance counselor that he doesn’t want to follow the the next, until he is sold by the wife of his eldest typical vocational program; he wants to be a teacher. brother to “a Communist chief, for five hundred This is the first time he learns about scholarships. pounds of rice” (13). When cruel treatment makes “‘So, if I get good grades, I can get free money to him miserable, he dreams of escape: “I dreamed I was attend college?’ I wanted to make sure I’d heard him flying on the back of a dragon. It was a big, strong right” (75). Like Ragged Dick, Francisco has a clear dragon. I rode on the winged beast’s back all night. I goal and follows his teachers as guides. Seeing his felt safe and powerful in my dream” (19). Chi Fa has algebra teacher, Mr. Coe, multiplying double-digit only this fantasy to sustain him through a long series numbers in his head, Francisco says, “I decided to of trials. Chi Fa says, “To keep my dying hopes write down double-digit multiplication tables on flickering, each day I searched the skies for dragon postcards and memorize them while I worked. I clouds” (155). When he learns about America, he wanted to be as good as Mr. Coe” (79). When he is a decides that his dragon will carry him away to this sophomore in high school, his English teacher encour- better place. Many years later when Chi Fa is finally

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

d11-15_TAR_Summer04 13 9/3/04, 9:27 AM flying to America, he sees dragon clouds in the sky—a an education and make a new beginning. He says, “If good omen that his luck is about to change (198). wanting something very badly could make it happen, I Throughout his difficulties, Chi Fa shows good knew I could learn to read” (163). He dreams of going character. When he was three years old, his sister to America, which he has heard is a land of plenty. He made him promise, “[N]ever forget that you are a says, “I often heard stories about America, and good boy” and believe that “you are lucky. Good although the dream seemed to get further and further fortune will find you” (7-8). This is his mantra. When away, with each passing day I longed more and more his Communist father accuses him of wrong-doing, he to go” (188). Finally, his persistence and patience are recites these promises to himself. He knows what he rewarded. Through a chance meeting, Chi Fa finds a needs and accordingly he knows that poor people patron, Mr. Ching. He pours out his dreams and should be helped. While the Communists in China misfortunes, and Mr. Ching, “listening with his heart,” rally to take over political power, Chi Fa thinks, “If agrees to help him get a visa to the United States. thousands of people are starving [. . .] we have to help There all his suffering, hard work, and good character them [. . .] . I was just a boy, but I knew how it felt to are finally rewarded. We learn in the Epilogue to the have an empty belly. I [. . .] couldn’t understand how novel that Chi Fa becomes the successful owner of a people could cheer because others were starving and restaurant in California, and he says, “Over the years, suffering” (26-27). Later he gives freely of anything he I have found America to be everything that I had has to help others. He cares for an epileptic man heard as a child and much more. I eat three times a shunned by other villagers and gives the man his day, and, indeed, I am too full to swallow sorrow” (206). mother’s quilt, his only treasure, to help the man endure his troubles. When he is in a refugee camp, he In the Footsteps of Horatio Alger Heroes gives rice to a hungry, old man but doesn’t want to be repaid. He says, “We are all hungry. We must help Francisco and Chi Fa follow in the footsteps of each other” (148). Even though his eldest brother Ragged Dick. Their stories like his, which on the treats him cruelly, Chi Fa tries to be sympathetic and surface read like biographies, are actually moral forgiving. He says, “I swallowed his harsh words and allegories. Dick, in his “down and out” condition accepted each bitter beating in silence. And after every looked for success in New York, a city fabled for attack, I tried my best to forgive Brother. My thinking opportunity. In these two novels about immigrant was this: Brother is not angry with Chi Fa. Brother is experience, the United States is the land of opportu- angry with his position in life” (109). nity, the place where potential success awaits these From childhood on Chi Fa learns resourcefulness boys. The main characters are outsiders, actual or and the ability to do all kinds of work. At nine, he figurative orphans, who are searching to carve out a says, “Long ago I had learned how to work hard. new identity. Just as Ragged Dick worked to recreate Many times each day I walked to the canal with a big himself as a clerk, so these boys seek to make them- jar and filled it with water and carried the heavy load selves into Americans. They hope to change their back to the house [. . .] I kept the room scrubbed and current economic or social condition, either through everyone’s clothes washed and folded. Each morning education or a job. But the moral of all these stories is and night, I cooked the rice and washed the dishes” the ethic of hard work and perseverance. Luck helps— (106-107). At eleven, when Chi Fa and his brother’s being at the right place at the right time, or having a family are refugees in Hong Kong and totally destitute, helpful patron—but in the end, it is strong character he learns different Chinese dialects, Cantonese, and hard work that lead to success. Horatio Alger’s Mandarin, Shanghainese, so he can beg for the notion that these stories would inspire ambition and family’s rice. He calls out, “Double luck [. . .]. If you achievement in the very boys whose difficult condition give this hungry boy a coin, it will be double luck. he was describing continues to inspire modern day Lucky once because you will feed a starving child, and writers, especially those writing from a point of view lucky twice because it will bring you good fortune” (153). that values assimilation into American culture. The All the time, Chi Fa dreams of a better life. When rags to riches theme, a manifestation of the American the family is admitted to Taiwan, Chi Fa hopes to get Dream and its promises of rewards and possibilities,

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

d11-15_TAR_Summer04 14 9/3/04, 9:27 AM continues to be a staple of young adult novels in Lu, Chi Fa with Becky White. Double Luck: Memoirs of a modern times. On a deeper level, perhaps it teaches Chinese Orphan. New York: Holiday House, 2001. the values of good character and the possibilities for Scharnhorst, Gary. Horatio Alger. Boston: Twayne, 1980. Scharnhorst, Gary with Jack Bales. The Lost Life of Horatio Alger, success open to all who are willing to work hard to Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. achieve their dreams. Such didactic messages about character and possibility have always been a staple of Suggested Reading children’s literature. It is no wonder that the Horatio Na, An. A Step from Heaven. Asheville, N.C.: Front Street, 2001. Alger theme continues to be a vehicle for these ideas Chen, Da. China’s Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution. in contemporary adolescent novels. New York: Delacorte, 2001. Mar, M. Elaine. Paper Daughter: A Memoir. New York: Perennial, 2000. Works Cited Mikaelsen, Ben. Red Midnight. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick. New York: Collier Books, 1962. Namioka, Lensey. An Ocean Apart, A World Away. New York: Hirsch, E. D. Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Delacorte, 2002. Know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Ryan, Pam Munoz. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic, Jiménez, Francisco. Breaking Through. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 2001. Shea, Pegi Deitz. Tangled Threads: A Hmong Girl’s Story. New Johnson, Deidre. Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer York: Clarion Books, 2003. Syndicate. New York: Twayne, 1993. Son, John. Finding My Hat. New York: Orchard Books, 2003. Kanfer, Stefan. “Horatio Alger: The Moral of the Story.” City Yen Mah, Adeline. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Journal Autumn 2000. 20 July 2004 Random House, 1999. journal.org/html/10_4_urbanities-the_moral.html>.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

d11-15_TAR_Summer04 15 9/3/04, 9:27 AM Rachel Cohn

Teens, Teachers and Controversial Text

Note: This paper is adapted from a speech I presented uncomfortable but which teen readers invariably at the 2003 NCTE convention in San Francisco as part recognize as situations that confront their own lives of an author panel that also included E.R. Frank and and those of their peers—these books actually offer Alex Sanchez. uplifting and positive messages about the coming of age experience. I don’t think of our books as the lex Sanchez, E.R. Frank, and I write YA books “issue” or “problem” books common in YA literature, that, particularly because of their frank but rather as honest depictions of the complicated A depictions of sexuality and family life, can be lives that contemporary teens live—sometimes sad, challenging for educators in terms of getting the books sometimes harsh, sometimes joyful—but always onto approved reading lists. Nonetheless, I believe interesting. there are methods that interested educators could use Bridging the gap between teenager appreciation of to bring controversial YA YA literature versus adult literature into classrooms to perspectives on controversial stimulate some of the core YA subject matter is a tricky tenets of education: reading, task. I am inspired to find writing, and thinking. educational value in these Although we have each books by teens themselves. published more than one Teens don’t just have opin- book, as examples, I am ions; they are PASSIONATE in focusing here on my book, their opinions. As an author I Gingerbread, Rainbow Boys, have learned that they just by Alex Sanchez, and Life is don’t like your book, they Funny, by E.R. Frank, each of LOVE it, they create fanlisting which have in common teen circles for it, they put up protagonists, dark content, websites and send you and controversial subjects like artwork they’ve created based abortion, adultery, teen on your book. Before any sexuality, alcoholism, drug author should get too big- addiction, and incest. Despite headed with a teen reader’s these books’ sometimes dark passionate devotion to a subject matter and controver- book, however, I need to sial content—and by contro- point out that the haters are versy I mean frank discus- equally vocal. To quote two sions of sex that make adults different Gingerbread teen

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

e16-19_TAR_Summer04 16 9/3/04, 9:26 AM readers, the book “wasn’t worth the paper it was “This book made more sense to me than my own thoughts printed on,” or “I hated it so much I threw it across do practically.” my room.” Focusing on the bright side, however, I’ve “When I read the book I was like “FINALLY! Someone who culled from my website, and comments posted on understands ‘different’ people and doesn’t make them sound Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, some honest and like freaks.” funny reactions to our books from teens that show me Thinking on the passionate and diverse reactions that these readers relate not only to the books’ teens have to controversial realistic fiction, here are controversial content, but they embrace it – and could, some ideas I came up with for translating these if given the right nudging, use these books as spring- reactions within a classroom environment. Keep in boards to learning. Here are just a few: mind that I have no training in teaching or social work, so my methods are unscientific to say the least, Life Is Funny: by E. R. Frank but definitely from the heart. “Although some of the issues the characters have to deal Lesson 1: Reading—The Book Challenge. A with are very traumatic, such as domestic violence, drug common thread I find among kids’ responses to abuse, incest, suicide, and teenage pregnancy and miscar- controversial YA literature is the sense of recognition riage, it is not a depressing book.” and affinity they feel with the protagonists. I never “Each character struggles with personal demons, family cease to be amazed by the volume of letters I get from troubles and young love, and though they often fall flat on girls who tell me that Cyd Charisse, the main charac- their faces, each one picks him or herself up by the time ter in Gingerbread, reminds them of themselves, or their tale is through.” that she feels like she could be their best friend. The “This book tells it like it is in Brooklyn, there is no butter- fictional Cyd Charisse considers herself a social ing things up. There’s cursing and some mature scenes, but outcast, even though she comes from an exceptionally if u ever can, and u can handle the reality made by E.R. privileged background. She has two nutty families on Frank, then definitely read it!!!” two different sides of the country, she’s been kicked out of a posh boarding school, her best friend is an old Rainbow Boys: by Alex Sanchez lady who lives in a nursing home—and yet so many “I’ve heard a lot said about this novel before I even read it. teen girls relate to her? Here’s why: the emotions – her I’ve heard kudos from the gay community, and much pro- vulnerability and quirkiness, her boy craziness, her tests against it for its ‘immorality’. Once I read the book, I desire to be independent of her family and yet not was forced to laugh. It was so wonderful, so rich, and so captivating. I laughed because all the people who gave it alienated from it. such compliments were right, and all the detractors and Life Is Funny and Rainbow Boys strike the same homophobes had reason to be pissed!” chord. One not-so-kind librarian posted the following “This book was one that really made me think of what it about Gingerbread on the Internet, “The protagonist is would be like to be homosexual in this society. It gave me a a whiny, spoiled teenaged girl who doesn’t understand better understanding of the feelings and actions that these why everyone else’s world doesn’t revolve around boys went through and how they grew to accept the way her.” Teen readers, however, see teen characters (and they are. It taught me a valuable lesson, not to judge people.” themselves) differently; one reader wrote to thank me for a book that wasn’t about “fake perfect families,” Gingerbread: by Rachel Cohn while another told me, “it gave me kinda of a relief to “I am a social outcast and I like it. I dress weird and have know that I wasn’t totally screwed up,” or from never done what people wanted me to, like shop at preppy another reader, “Gingerbread made me feel like it’s ok stores or have a million friends I don’t like. I was going to be different, and proud.” through a hard time with my family. They did not like how Books to which young people can relate, however I was so independent, but your book always reminded me that I’m not the only one and that I should never change dark their content, get challenging students to read, myself for any one.” period. One reader posted this appraisal of Ginger- bread, “There are no words for this book! I can’t “This story actually helped me cope with my problems, and my divorced parents, my boyfriend, my police situa- believe how this book changed my life, it showed me tion.” how reading wasn’t just for school, I was so into the

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

e16-19_TAR_Summer04 17 9/3/04, 9:26 AM book that I read it in one day in 5 hours non stop, it students to write in their own voices, naturally, really changed my life, I read all the time now.” without affectation and without worry of proper Another passionate reading convert wrote, “Ginger- English stymieing their attempts at prose. Letting their bread has inspired me to read all the time. I love written words flow without grammatical or literary reading now. I used to hate hate HATE it. Now it’s like censorship will encourage students to write—just a must.” write, simple as that. As their confidence and experi- I believe that if YA books can ensnare the reluc- ence with writing in their own voices grows, so will tant reader and turn that reluctant reader into a their writing skills. And using realistic contemporary passionate reader, then we’re one step closer to YA fiction as examples allows students to see that if bringing that reader happily—and not reluctantly—to they want to start writing, they don’t have to have a the classics on the school curriculum. A Book Chal- Lord of the Rings-worthy universe already thought lenge can bridge the reading choices of a teen versus up—they can start with the world and the voices they the imposed choices of adults. I know that books like already know. I know students are encouraged to Gingerbread, Life Is Funny and Rainbow Boys are write by YA literature because I, like several other YA slipping into the curriculum by student choice, via the writers I know, had to put up a section on my website infamous book report. I think you could take a student about How To Be A Writer in response to the almost book report choice and pair it with the Board of daily queries I get from kids who want to be writers Education choice, as a challenge to the student. Dare after finding books like Gingerbread, Rainbow Boys, students to find the same alienation or outcast feelings and Life Is Funny. These books reflect the way teens experienced by the protagonists in Gingerbread, Life Is talk and feel, and thus encourage teen readers to take Funny and Rainbow Boys in assigned reading like the next step forward, to express themselves in Othello, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and of writing. course, Catcher in the Rye. Our YA books have hor- Lastly, Lesson 3: Thinking. We all know the monal teenagers grappling with issues of sexual value of Shakespeare, the Greek plays, and the classics identity—aren’t the characters in Romeo & Juliet, of English literature that teach students about history, Wuthering Heights, and again Catcher in the Rye, doing morality, politics, and philosophy, etc. Reading the same? I’ll confess that I loathed high school controversial YA literature as supplements to these English classes and particularly the lofty English classics will get students thinking not just on a selfish literature classics that I felt were shoved down my level—how does this apply to me?—but just as the throat—but when I look back on my high school self, I classics can introduce students to the great ideas that think I would have found genuine excitement in a have been debated throughout history, study of YA teacher challenging me to take those perceived stuffy literature allows teens access to an important develop- classics and compare them to a book I could relate to, mental tool in their emotional maturity. and even better yet, to one my mother wouldn’t have In YA books with so-called taboo content and approved of me reading. risky behavior, students have to explore the notion Lesson 2: Writing. Controversial YA lit can be that they themselves will, through their actions and effective not just in bringing in the reluctant reader, those actions’ consequences, have to examine and but in bringing out the reluctant writer. Teens respond make decisions that will form who they become as to controversial YA literature because the emotions adults. Students won’t just relate but can learn from reflect their own, but so do the voices: YA literature— controversial YA characters by analyzing: 1) what is the kind that strives to please teens and not necessar- their opinion of the character and the character’s ily adults—sounds like a real teen talking, whether it’s actions?; 2) what advice would they give to the Cyd Charisse’s California slang, the urban hip-hop character?; and 3) what would they do in the beat of the characters in Life Is Funny, or the rainbow character’s position? Gingerbread, Rainbow Boys, and boys whose supposed stereotyped roles—jock Jason, Life Is Funny all give models for, as Emily Plicka, a nice guy Kyle, flamboyant Nelson—give way to graduate student in Education at Cal State-Sacramento layered and complex personalities. A teacher can use wrote to me, “dealing with teen issues in positive, or the voices in these books as examples to encourage maybe even negative ways—but the end result is that

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

e16-19_TAR_Summer04 18 9/3/04, 9:26 AM the reader knows what could truly bring happiness to what other people tell her to and expect of her, so when that character. And the hope is that the application she’s just doing her own thing at her own pace, it’s a lot cooler. And the fact that she had all that experience and she will be for students to think about their actions in had to go through all the trashy stuff is really important— their lives—and what options they have for dealing learning from experiences. with teen issues, and what they can do to increase happiness for themselves.” Learning from experiences: Here is the optimal One of the best teen affirmations of YA literature outcome we can hope to absorb from reading litera- I’ve received comes from my unbiased, very favorite ture, be it YA or classic, no matter the age of the teen reader—my sixteen-year-old sister Martha, who reader. Martha’s evaluation offers, to me, the essence confirmed for me Emily Plicka’s evaluation of contro- of what controversial YA literature can provide teen versial YA books’ appeal to teens’ emotional develop- readers, on a scale different but complementary to the ment. Martha wrote to me with her reaction to Pop literary classics on a school curriculum: YA books, if Princess, a YA book I wrote that is coming out in 2004. given the chance, can teach, guide, and mold, through Pop Princess is about a 16-year-old girl who seemingly voices and situations to which kids can relate, and rises from nowhere to a life of extreme glamour as a hopefully, that adults, too, can appreciate. pop singer—only the lifestyle might not exactly match who the girl really is or wants to be. Martha wrote to Gingerbread jacket photographs © 2002 by Jane me, Wattenberg. Jacket design by Anahid Hamparian.

It was just really cool and different to read about a totally different world for most kids, then at the same time, a part Rachel Cohn is the author of the young adult novels of her that kids can relate to as well. Obviously, it deals Gingerbread and Pop Princess and the middle-grade novel with issues like sex, bullying and death, but one issue that The Steps. Her next young adult novel, Shrimp, a sequel was interesting to me is the part at the end when she does to Gingerbread, will be published in early 2005. She lives it all on her own terms: writing her own songs and playing in Manhattan. the guitar, too. In a lot of the book she just seems to do

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

e16-19_TAR_Summer04 19 9/3/04, 9:26 AM Debra Seely & Eleanor Ramrath Garner

Two Views of the Past: Historical Fiction and Autobiography

Authors Debra Seely and Eleanor Ramrath Garner may World War II in Eleanors Story: An American Girl in take two different approaches in their writings, but Hitler’s Germany. At a time when teens may have a both assist today’s adolescent readers in stepping into tendency to focus on their own current interests, Seely the past. Debra Seely’s works of historical fiction, set and Garner help them discover new insight into the in nineteenth century Kansas, highlight the 1800s past and, hopefully, give them a broader perspective ranching country. Meanwhile, Eleanor Ramrath Garner for the future. Lori Atkins Goodson takes a more personal approach with her memoirs of

You Can’t Change History, Can You? By Debra Seely

hen I first started researching my juvenile It’s not likely to surprise anyone that historical historical fiction novels set in nineteenth fiction can be a wonderful addition to teaching W century Kansas, I kept bumping into facts history. Historical fiction can take the reader into the that didn’t fit my 1950s movie-western image of the world of the past through imagination. Well-written American West. They included Black communities of historical fiction can be authoritative, too, because it homesteaders and Jewish communities of homestead- must be accurate to be believable. Thomas Fleming, ers. African-American and Hispanic cowboys consti- historian and author of over forty works of both tuted one-third of the drovers riding the Texas cattle nonfiction and fiction, writes, trails (Porter 343). Female cowhands numbered far a historical novel is not ‘made up.’ Its vitality can and should fewer but were still among the populace. These aren’t come from history itself, and the deeper its roots in reality, unfamiliar facts anymore, thanks to historians devoted the better (8). to telling the stories that haven’t always been told in Yet readers should expect the historical novel to serve history, stories about people and events that changed only as a springboard into the study of history. and shaped the West as profoundly as those in the Historical fiction may provide a broad context, but more well-known stories. I began to think seriously more often than not, what intrigues a writer of about the responsibility the historical fiction writer historical fiction is the anomaly, the part of history has to tell these stories, particularly to young people. that is different from the rest. Fleming writes that

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 20 9/3/04, 9:25 AM often, what sparks the imagination “may be the discovery of a set of little-known facts or a situation Debra Seely’s second book, The Last of the that has relevance to our own time. I believe a prime Roundup Boys, was published earlier this year. It function of the historical novel is to surprise as well as follows a companion work, Grasslands, which intrigue the reader” (8). The historical fiction writer, received numerous accolades and awards. In her in other words, looks for what serves the story. two novels, Seely showcases, through the eyes of Here’s a story I found: In 1914, two sisters, Elsie her teenage characters Tom and Evie, the life of and Amy Cooksley, in Wyoming’s Hole-in-the-Wall pioneers trying to tame the harsh prairies of country of Butch Cassidy fame, hired out as cow- Kansas. We asked her to share some details about hands, rounding up cattle, branding, and doing all the her writing career and how she lassoed such an other rugged work right alongside cowboys. The interesting topic for two young adult novels. sisters did this work for years. They loved the job, and it was a way to contribute to the family income. They Lori Goodson spoke with Debra Seely by email. didn’t see themselves as rebels. Most of their female friends, however, did not work cattle, and some LG: How did life bring you to writing? Was thought Elsie and Amy’s work was strange or even Grasslands your first attempt at a novel? scandalous. When we think of the typical cowboy of the American West, Elsie and Amy are not who come DS: I’m a former English teacher (junior high, to mind. Yet there they were (Jordan 2-12). high school, college) and have just recently The atypical character has its place in historical become a full-time writer. I started writing in fiction for young people; however, Professor Anne 1987 and earned an MFA in Creative Writing Scott MacLeod (1998) cautions against letting current in 1997. Grasslands was my thesis, and yes, it sensibilities intrude upon the accuracy of their was my first attempt at a novel. portrayal. In critiquing young adult novels such as Catherine Called Birdy and The True Confessions of LG: For a debut novel, Grasslands certainly won Charlotte Doyle, she argues that such books inappro- a lot of awards. Were you surprised with the priately foist a contemporary feminist viewpoint on success of this story? their historical setting, including heroines acting with an independence more consistent with today’s values. DS: I didn’t think about winning awards when I MacLeod writes that it is wrong to show these was writing the novel. I just wanted to tell a heroines behaving contrary to the accepted mores of good story, but I am pleased that other people the day. She claims the reality of history is that liked it.

most people in most societies are not rebels; in part, because the cost of nonconformity is more than they want to LG: Both of your books, Grasslands and The Last pay, but also because, as members of the society, they share of the Roundup Boys, are young adult fiction its convictions. Most people are, by definition, not excep- set in the past. How did you develop an tional (34). interest in historical fiction? Her objection to writers grafting contemporary mores onto historical periods is a valid consideration, of DS: I liked to read historical fiction when I was course, but it is a mistake to think that women of young. I also liked to listen to family histo- earlier times did not have the desires for their lives ries. It’s been very helpful in my life to know that feminism has allowed contemporary women to the stories of people who’ve gone before me. express. History has not always told these women’s It gives me a sense of connection to time and stories, but just because something wasn’t recorded in place. Historical fiction is satisfying in that it’s history doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. instructive to read about people struggling Newbery Medal winner Avi, author of Crispin with the issues of their day and learn how Cross of Lead and The True Confessions of Charlotte they coped. Doyle, has said that “most of history was written by

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 21 9/3/04, 9:25 AM men, so it isn’t accurate” (SCBWI). Revisionist history is often criticized for seeking to change the facts of LG: And why, specifically, did you choose to history, but it seeks less to change the facts than to tell write for a young adult audience? the rest of the facts—to tell the stories that haven’t been told. Much of history has been the record of the DS: The characters and concerns I like to explore workings of the great and powerful—armies, kings, and seem to appeal to this age group. explorers. Many stories have been left out—the poor, the slaves, and women’s stories, for example, and if LG: The Last of the Roundup Boys is not the these stories were told, it was often by others. Women typical look at pioneering and cowboy life. on the frontier of the American West, for example, How did you arrive at such an idea for the were portrayed in the popular imagination as long- novel? suffering Madonnas—there is even a sculpture entitled Madonna of the Prairie—or as prostitutes, or outlaws. DS: I used family stories as a starting point. I The latter two are certainly exceptional women, great wanted to explore stories about the West that for stories, but not the voice of most women of the were perhaps atypical but true. Although no West. If we read their stories as told in their voices women in my family wanted to be cowgirls, through their letters and diaries, we find neither saints there were cowgirls in the West and there nor sinners, but complex women facing uncertainty were women in my family (very determined and doing the best they can. A writer of historical women!) who wanted choices in life that fiction might find exciting stories in the West’s weren’t offered to them. In that sense, they Madonnas and prostitutes, but to be responsible to the typified western women. I think the American mindset of the times, to portray the historical reality, West has historically offered a sense of the writer must look beyond these romantic images freedom and possibility to everybody, but for into the truths of stories that have been less often told. some people the options were pretty narrow. Evie, the protagonist in my novel Last of the Roundup Boys (Holiday House 2004), has grown up on LG: Will adolescents identify with your charac- the prairies of Kansas with a great deal of freedom, ters even though it takes place more than 100 common to girls of that time (1886) and place. Evie years ago? What is the appeal of YA historical wants to remain a cowgirl, a role she’s assumed since fiction? childhood and wants to continue, even though her parents pressure her toward a more conventional role. DS: Problems with parents and decisions about But when girls of that time and place became young life’s work and a mate are issues that tran- women, they were expected to assume the fairly scend time and place. I hope young people rigidly defined roles of their mothers, roles that didn’t will respond to the emotional struggles Tom fit their experience growing up. The story asks what and Evie have, but I hope adolescents learn happens when someone rebels against the role she’s something about the past, too. I hope they been assigned. There is conflict, and conflict often see it as a time that impacts and instructs the begets change. Certainly change came for western present – for me, that is the appeal. women. They were the first to get the vote, including Wyoming women in territorial elections in 1869, and LG: As a native Kansan, do you have any family Kansas women in municipal elections in 1887, background in ranching? although the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage amendment) to the Constitution would not be DS: My mother’s family has been ranching and passed in the U.S. Senate until 1919. farming in Kansas for four generations. Non-conformists are the agents of change in a culture—the makers of history. What drives change is LG: Since you live in a ranching area, what dissatisfaction with the status quo. American women kinds of responses did you get from other today would not be able to vote without the women of

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 22 9/3/04, 9:25 AM by character and conflict. Avi says that historical native Kansans as you shared your story of a fiction needs to be thoroughly grounded in historical girl dreaming of ranching and of the racism fact and in the mindset of people of its period to be that existed? believable, but it aims to tell the story not told, to ask the “What if?” questions about history (SCBWI). A DS: Some women have shared with me their fiction writer will be more interested in what happens mothers’ stories of being ranch and to a character who is different from the societal norm farmwomen. Generally, these have been because a character who generates conflict is interest- positive tales about coming to terms with ing and thus creates a story. Avi’s Charlotte Doyle is, farming and making it a creative life. in fact, grounded in historical fact. She’s based on a nineteenth century poem in which a woman dressed LG: In your article, you discuss conformists and as a man to accompany her sailor-lover on his voy- nonconformists. It would seem that, as an ages. But Charlotte becomes her own character, and author, you are a nonconformist by approach- whether or not you agree that she’s believable as a sea ing a subject from an unusual perspective. Do captain, she serves to illustrate the exception to the you see yourself as somewhat of a rebel when rule for women of the era, to explore the “What if?”; sharing stories of America’s history? in this case, what if a person back then and there whom everyone accepted, thinking she was male, DS: Less of a rebel than just a storyteller who is turned out to be female? intrigued by stories that haven’t been told. One value of looking at the anomaly in history, But I do believe it is important to include a the little-known or unconventional act, is that history wide variety of stories from America’s past, is made by the people who confront traditional mores not just those that fit a certain way of think- and instigate change. History is a record of change. ing. Including untold stories from the past is a The story of the rebel is also the stuff of literature, the way of including people in the present. individual in conflict with the society. Historical fiction has the opportunity to examine a historical past LG: You’ve written two companion books—what imaginatively, at the level of an individual life, the are your plans for future novels? Are Tom and actions that lead to change, that make history. Evie coming back to us? Every culture has its non-conformists, recorded and non-recorded. One of my writer friends asks, DS: I plan to stick with historical fiction, but I’m “Would anyone believe a fiction writer who created a going to let Tom and Evie ride off into the young girl who dressed like a soldier and commanded sunset—for now, anyway. The novel I’m armies in rebellion, saying God told her to?” Yet this is working on now does have cowboys, though. the story of Joan of Arc. Less recorded but more common is the girl who doesn’t want to marry the Note: Be sure to read the review of The Last of man her parents arranged for her to marry in medieval the Roundup Boys in this issue’s Clip and File England. We know she’s there from the fifteenth section. For more information about Debra Seely, century Paston letters which MacLeod mentions. They go to http://www.debraseely.com. describe the girl who was beaten once or twice a week because she opposed her mother’s choice of a match (MacLeod 28). We know that human nature, regard- the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who refused to less of the time period, does not like to be coerced. accept the non-voting status of women. Change may Here is the opportunity for the writer to ask “What not have occurred in their lifetime, but they continued if?” What if a girl tried to rebel, to act out her feelings? to prod. The famous ones are known, but the contem- What options were open to her? Thus we get Karen porary historical fiction writer asks, what about the Cushman’s Newbery Honor book, Catherine Called ones whose stories aren’t known? Birdy. MacLeod has criticized the novel for imposing Historical fiction is not history. It is story, driven contemporary ideology on medieval times. But to

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 23 9/3/04, 9:25 AM portray a protagonist who is an exception to the rebels, who question and challenge social conventions culture is not imposing contemporary ideology on the and ultimately change history. past. Catherine’s struggle against her culture, in fact, highlights the values of the culture and teaches us Debra Seely lives in Wichita, Kansas, with her husband and three children. She writes and lectures full time. more about it. Contrast Catherine to her friend Aelis. Aelis is also disinclined to marry her parents’ choice Works Cited because they’ve chosen a seven-year-old boy. But Avi. “An Hour with Avi: Questions & Answers.” Conference of the Aelis, although she loves someone else, doesn’t rebel Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Roosevelt against her parents’ choice of spouse for her. We see, Hotel, New York. 8 Feb. 2004. Fleming, Thomas. “How Real History Fits into the Historical instead, the difference between the medieval and our Novel.” The Writer 111 (March 1998): 7–11. own modern mindset. Jordan, Teresa. Cowgirls: Women of the American West. Lincoln: It is irresponsible to put a modern mindset into a University of Nebraska Press, 1992. historical character. But it goes against our knowledge MacLeod, Anne Scott. “Writing Backward: Modern Models in of human nature and history to assume that no one Historical Fiction.” The Horn Book Magazine 74 (1998): 26– ever questioned his or her lot in life or longed for 34. Porter, Kenneth. “The Labor of Negro Cowboys.” Major Problems change. While historical fiction must portray the in the History of the American West. Ed. Clyde A. Milner. mores of the day, its great stories arise from the Toronto: D. C. Heath, 1989. conflict created by the rebels, often the unknown

Memoirs In Adolescent Literature By Eleanor Ramrath Garner

ot enough has been written about the impor- happens to real people. It isn’t just cold facts, but a tance of memoirs in adolescent literature. With living, organic changing thing. It is about life, human Nthis article I hope to illustrate the unique life, with all its triumphs and failures, its increases and learning experience memoirs can bring to classroom decreases, its courage and weakness, its lights and teaching and to demonstrate from my own experience darks. In his 1995 acceptance speech for the National the enormous appeal that personal stories have on Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribu- adolescents. I refer mostly to my own story, since I tion to American Letters, David McCullough, the know it best, but the insights are applicable to all Pulitzer Prize-winning author, says, young adult memoirs. “We live in an era of momentous change, creating great Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s pressures and tensions. But history (through our stories) Germany is a World War II remembrance that spans shows that times of tumult are the times when we are most the years 1939 to 1946, ages nine to sixteen, when I likely to learn…. History really is an extension of life. It found myself as an American girl in Berlin, Germany, enlarges and intensifies the experience of being alive.” where I survived a repressive regime and the terrors Our personal stories make history texts jump and tragedies of war. After the book was published in alive. They provide the texture, the details, the sights, 1999, I received many letters from readers and from the sounds, the smells, and, above all, the emotions of classroom teachers. important events in the past. Faceless statistics Memoirs are in essence historical documents. suddenly become real people. With the death of an They are timeless perennials that not only describe a eyewitness, whose story has not been shared, a piece period of history, but also address the universality of of the past is lost, and the world is poorer for it. It is collective human experiences. History, after all, this fact, and the enduring truths, that make memoirs

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 24 9/3/04, 9:25 AM so precious. Over and over again teachers and students who had read my book told me, “your story is Eleanor Ramrath Garner continues to receive so compelling because we know it happened to a real praise for her World War II memoir, Eleanor’s person, not a fictional one.” Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany. Historians tell us that approximately 55 million While her journal article discusses the signifi- people lost their lives in WWII. Besides the Holocaust cance of memoirs, she generously agreed to be with its loss of 6 million lives, 500,000 civilians, interviewed. She shares critical insight into how mostly women, children, and the old, died in Allied she became a temporary resident of Hitler’s bombings over Germany. Twenty-two thousand Germany and just what that time in her life civilians were killed within an hour and a half in the entailed. Additionally, she tells how sharing her middle of a sunny day in Berlin. These are staggering story has helped her reflect on such a solemn and figures, but they have no human value in attempting crucial time in her life. to understand the brutality and inhumanity of war. Questions arise: How did it feel to be bombed day LG: Why did you decide to write about your after day, night after night, sometimes seventeen times years in Hitler’s Germany? Were you planning in twenty-four hours, fully aware the next minute to turn it into a book, or was it simply for you might be the last? What was it like when home and and your family? Have you always been a neighborhood became the battlefield? How did people writer? live in a totally decimated city with none of the basic necessities, like electricity, gas, food, and drinking ERG: We who were eyewitnesses of World War water, amidst plunder and rape by occupation forces? II are fast dying out. It is important to the How did war impact children physically and psycho- understanding of history that our stories be logically? How did they cope with constant fear and told. An editor friend I met during my years insecurity? at Harcourt Brace, who later became an War literature answers questions like these in a acquisitions editor with Peachtree Publishers way that young people, who never personally felt the in Atlanta, encouraged me to write down my effects of armed conflict, can understand. Memoirs are stories with young adults in mind. I had often written honestly without political or historical bias thought about doing this, if for no other and without the usual Hollywood spin. reason than to preserve family history, but I Statistics have no face or soul. We can’t feel lacked the courage to tackle such a daunting compassion for numbers. They make an abstract of task, particularly considering the painful the fact that history happens to real people. For material I would have to work with. But with instance, the tragedy of the Twin Towers bombing on Sarah Smith’s strong emotional and editorial 9/11 in New York City, where almost 3,000 people lost support, I was able to write a successful book their lives, didn’t really hit us until we read their and release the young girl from her prison of stories. It brought home the horror in a personal way dark memories. I have always been a writer we could not forget. Hundreds of American soldiers at heart. I have written articles, short stories, have died and continue to die in the war in Iraq, and and children’s stories, but Eleanor’s Story is thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have lost their my first book. lives, but not until we read stories of individuals did we mourn and lament the senselessness and cruelty of LG: Had you been encouraged by family mem- war. bers to share your story? When survivor stories are told, history moves from mythic quality to reality. The enormity of the ERG: No, it was solely my decision and the Holocaust didn’t become real to us until we read Anne desire to share my story with others. My Frank’s Diary and the many other survivor stories. siblings were most supportive. Eyewitness accounts can do what history books alone cannot do. Pamela Thomason, a teacher at Valley High

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 25 9/3/04, 9:25 AM School in West Des Moines, Iowa, wrote to me:

As a high school teacher, I’ve had the opportunity to share LG: Could you give us an idea of what led up to your story with U.S. history students as part of their social your being in Germany during World War II? studies curriculum. We quickly became engrossed in all you experienced. I’ve seen once again that story can affect indi- ERG: During the Depression years, my father viduals as no other medium; truth draws us into its grip. In lost his position as engineer for General the context of story, we make connections about human nature, its potential, and its complete depravity. Electric Company in Philadelphia. He was eventually able to get a low paying job as Someone once said, “A story of real importance is draftsman with RCA in Camden. We moved at once a presentation and an invitation.” I think what from Philadelphia to a less expensive area in it means is an invitation to readers to make an Stratford, New Jersey. In 1939 my father was imaginative response to reality. It invites them to find offered a challenging engineering position their own connection to the story. Much like dreams, with AEG—the general electric company of good stories allow the expression and the experience Berlin. He took the position with the under- of both personal and collective material. They coax standing that we would return to the States in readers into the imaginal realm where they can fully two years. En route on a German ship, the participate in the life of another. A middle school war broke out and we were unable to return, student wrote: “Even though your experience wasn’t and two years turned into seven years of mine, the story made me feel as though it were mine.” trying to survive WWII in Nazi Germany. Indeed, a strange kind of intimacy spins between the author of a memoir and the reader. It’s like sharing LG: Without taking too much away from the secrets with a stranger. Students often tell me, “I feel I book for those who haven’t read it yet, what know you after having read your book.” They know were some of the key events and experiences me because so much of what I reveal of substance is you observed? What was the most traumatic universal and belongs to all human beings. Feelings for you? we find in ourselves, we also find in others. It is what binds us together as human beings. As a writer, I was ERG: Leaving the secure world of a happy able to articulate what is still relatively unformed and childhood in Stratford for the frightening without words in a young person’s psyche, and yet unknown in a foreign country; having to wants to be expressed. A student wrote: “It must take learn how to read and write in a foreign a lot of courage to write about your feelings for language at age 9—always afraid of not everybody to read. I could never do that. I would write measuring up to others. Adjusting to an it as if it happened to a friend.” unfamiliar culture and the repressive Nazi Eleanor’s Story became a watershed for an eleven- regime. The constant fear of losing family year-old who wrote: “Your story had such a huge members, friends, home, and neighborhood impact on me because I have never before seen death to bombings. The heartache of many family or been afraid to go to sleep at night. I have never had separations. The emotional impact of histori- the screaming of bombs in my ears or felt terror. Your cal and political events on my life. The early book made me feel as though I was there right with loss of childhood due to increased responsi- you. It made war come alive.” bilities and the daily presence of death. The Another student made a connection to the present most traumatic for me was the ever-present situation in Iraq and to his own experience as a fear of being buried alive by a blockbuster. refugee from Vietnam. He wrote: “I see some similari- The desperate knocking of people still alive ties with the war in Iraq and your story. They had a under bombed out buildings haunted me for dictator, too, like Hitler, and there are many innocent years. people who had to suffer. We are immigrants from Vietnam. After the end of the Vietnam war and as the communists were taking over the territories in the

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 26 9/3/04, 9:25 AM South, our family fled the country for new hope, as did thousands of others. Like your family, my family LG: Was there any joy that you experienced was separated many times.” during that time? Or was it all terrifying and A twelve-year-old related to the evil of war, again dreadful? finding parallels to the current situation in Iraq: “Your book taught me a lot. I learned about the evils of war. ERG: No, it was not all terrifying and dreadful. Reading your personal story made me think about Even in the worst of times the heart can still everybody in the Middle East. I realized that civilians dance. There were two more babies born into living in Iraq are just as innocent as you were. It our family who brought me joy and needed inspired me to want to help them in any way I can my protection. There were family and holiday through methods such as prayer. Your story also celebrations despite the war, visits to rela- inspired me to want to help prevent war in the tives, a best friend to share things with, the world.” joy in nature and its promise of renewal, easy A fourteen-year-old related to the injustice of access to memories of happy, carefree times prejudice: in America, a fervent belief in 14 protective angels that surrounded me, and the ability to When I was first taught of WWII and the Holocaust, I thought, ‘Oh, those horrible Germans! They must all be lose myself in the magic of books that could bad,’ and I have been prejudiced ever since. But your book transport me into a better world. Above all, it has shown me that many innocent German people were was the love for my family, the close relation- also victims of this cruel man, Hitler. ship to my brother, and the intimacy of a best These are just a few of the many, many letters I friend that brought me the most joy and made have received from young people expressing the the day-to-day drudgery of war bearable. strong impact my story had on them. They related my experience to a need to understand themselves, and to LG: One can’t help but make the comparison to find their own place in the insecure world of today. Anne Frank; why do you think adults and What touched me so was that these students young people are so moved by seeing World showed a remarkable capacity for reflective thinking, War II through the eyes of a child? drawing comparisons, and asking good questions when encouraged to do so. They corrected my ERG: My book is often compared to The Diary of misconception that young people today were only Anne Frank, perhaps because we were about interested in lightweight, fun books. I could see that, the same age, both living under a totalitarian once introduced to more serious literature, the regime and both having our childhood cut students took off, bringing their own imagination to short. I think the eyes of a child see things the contents of my book. For instance, they developed the way they really are. There are no political, in-class skits and readings, kept thematic journals, historical, or psychological biases. The child arranged for author interviews, emailed questions to perceives the events in total honesty without me, wrote essays on how the experiences in the book the distortion of adult perceptions. The child related to their own lives, created art projects by is not interested in pleasing anyone and so designing their own book cover, crafted mobiles out of says it like it is, without guile. I think it’s this coat hangers with key elements in the story, painted honesty and innocence that a child brings to posters, prepared time lines, all ways of expressing in war literature that intensifies the experiences concrete form what they had read and understood. On and so deeply moves both adults and chil- their own, they sought out similar memoirs on World dren. War II and the Holocaust, exploring commonalities and differences in the various experiences. LG: After you left Germany in 1946, where did For instance, Anne Frank and Eleanor were the you go and what did you do? same age. Each lived under totally different circumstances, one child Jewish, the other Roman Catholic,

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 27 9/3/04, 9:25 AM yet both were caught up in the terrifying drama unfolding around them, one in Holland, the other in ERG: In the final chapter of my book, titled Germany. What were the commonalities, and how “Home is the Stranger,” I return to the States. were they different? How did each child cope with fear Here I was once again confronted with and insecurity and still find hope in a world gone enormous acculturation problems as I did in awry? One survived; the other did not. How about 1939 Germany. I had just come from day-to- Jean Wakatsuki Houston’s experience in growing up day brushes with death, from constant as a Japanese American behind barbed wire in the hunger, and a totally decimated city, into a United States during that period (in Farewell to country untouched by war. I entered high Manzanar)? In what way did prejudice play a role in school in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, the lives of these three girls? and tried to fit in. It took enormous courage These are great springboards for discussion and to overcome the many problems I encoun- reflective thinking. Students can be encouraged to find tered on the way back to some kind of normal parallels to what is happening in the world today. life. My education had suffered because of Have the images of war changed since WWII? Stu- sporadic school attendance in Germany, and dents can also explore acts of courage and compassion nightmares haunted me. I felt like an outsider, in these personal stories and how they might relate to not belonging anywhere. The readjustment to everyday school and home life. America was another big task of overcoming Young adult memoir is storytelling at its most as so many before. powerful. This type of literature reveals so much of human behavior and is embedded with “instructions” LG: After you wrote your memoir and it received that guide young people through the complexities of such strong reviews, what was your response? life. These stories offer a different kind of hero from Joy? Sorrow at the memory of it all? the usual football player, rock star, or movie idol. The young heroes or heroines in these memoirs are forced ERG: I was totally awed at the wonderful warm to grow up way before their time and are often called reception my book received from reviewers on to make mature decisions that can affect the lives and readers and the many awards it won and of others. They deal with the challenges of everyday continues to win. I remember saying to my life courageously and are not swayed by collective editor, “I don’t think anyone will be inter- thinking. In spite of Hitler Youth, Nazi indoctrination, ested in my story.” I wasn’t heroic to my propaganda, cultural pressure, and Allied bombings, adult way of thinking, but after the book was loyalty to my own country never wavered. Children of completed, I realized with amazement that war become streetwise and learn the art of survival by the young girl in me had indeed been heroic tapping into deeply buried instincts, finding reserves and spunky in the pure act of day-to-day of strength they never knew they had. They find hope survival and the overcoming of incredible and reassurance in the ever-repeating cycles of nature odds. She deserved to have her story told. and belief in a higher order of things. They learn to appreciate the love of family, the gift of friendship, LG: What do you feel is the role of your book for and, above all, the preciousness of life itself. The young people? major theme that binds all these personal stories together is the triumph of the human spirit over ERG: I see my book as a learning experience for adversity. young people. It makes World War II come I want to mention some guidelines in selecting a alive by taking the reader into the heart of good memoir as literature for classroom use: what to war, what it was like living under Hitler, what look for. As a teaching tool, it must not only be a it was like trying to survive under Allied personal story authentically told, but it should also bombings, house-to-house combat in the reflect the social issues of a larger group. What battle for Berlin, and the terrors of Soviet conditions and experiences shape a country and its

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 28 9/3/04, 9:25 AM people like Germany under the Nazis? A memoir must occupation. It puts a human face on the show the universal themes and drama that expose the horrors of war and helps them to understand underlying patterns of life, not only as a witness to that each casualty of war is a person, not a history, but also as a mirror to the vulnerabilities that statistic. In war many innocent civilians have we share with all humanity. The story cannot be all to suffer and die. The book also teaches self- sad, depressing, and full of pathos. It must also awareness and independence. It juxtaposes contain a counterbalance of light moments and humor wartime ordeals to the universal experiences to show that even in the most difficult times, the heart of growing up. can still dance, that hope never goes away completely. The experiences of growing up must be told compel- As a middle-school educator who teaches lingly and honestly so that young people can find LG: about World War II in her language arts themselves in the feelings and emotions of the classroom, I’m still concerned that students storyteller. No one is all good or all bad. Authors who don’t understand the true terror of that time. write memoirs for adolescents must be willing to share How can we help them better understand it? their own vulnerabilities and include not only the triumphs, but also the failures. History lessons alone cannot make The emotions of growing up are common to ERG: students understand the terror of war, but everybody. What child doesn’t struggle with low self- when they read personal accounts by peers, esteem, with fear of being different and of not fitting the understanding of fear and human suffer- in, with parental tensions, with wanting independence ing shifts to comprehension—that could have from parents, but at the same time needing their been me! What would I have done under the support and approval? The reader wants to know that same circumstances? Personal stories are the main character in the book struggled with these powerful tools in teaching history, social same themes. studies (propaganda, Nazism, dictators, Authenticity, not only historically, but also fascism, outcome of war) and language arts. psychologically, is of great importance. Does the They encourage students to reflect and to find character ring true? connections to their own lives. They awaken I think the mistake authors often make in writing interest in history and the desire to explore memoirs is to view their experience as a child through other books on the same subject. It’s impor- the developed critical ego of the adult, not allowing tant that what the student has read and the child to express its own truth, thus unwittingly understood be put into some kind of tangible creating a distortion in perception: a child then form like writing or poetry or the arts. (Please emerges that isn’t quite real. In other words, the adult note, Peachtree Publishers provides free of ego—manipulated, bent, and shaped over a lifetime by charge, Peachtree Pointers, suggestions to parental and societal expectations—no longer truly teachers and librarians how to teach Eleanor’s represents the perceptions of the child, and a distor- Story.) tion happens that a sensitive reader can detect as inauthentic. What did your experiences in World War II When I was writing my memoir, I soon became LG: teach you? aware that the older me, like any parent, criticized the young girl as she tried to express herself with brutal My experiences in World War II taught me honesty. I wanted to soft-pedal some of her actions ERG: about the terrible legacy of hate and prejudice and thoughts, mitigate them through my adult and intolerance that have led, and continue to perception and, at times, make excuses for her lead, human beings to unspeakable evils in behavior. However, I would promptly hear from my the world. They taught me to appreciate and editor saying, “That’s not the child speaking, that’s value the freedom of speech and the press, the older woman. Don’t editorialize! I want her voice, her feelings.” The big question was how do I do this?

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 29 9/3/04, 9:25 AM How can I keep the older woman from interfering? Then I had an idea. Why not allow the older woman and what a privilege it is to live under a her point of view in a journal? I began to keep a daily democratic form of government, flawed as it journal that ran simultaneously with the manuscript. may be. They taught me about the sustaining It turned out to be the most creative decision I ever power of love of family and friends, and the made. Here I recorded my adult reflections, insights, joy of hope that never really dies. They taught and thoughts, dialogued with the young girl, listened me that all experiences in life, both the good to her complaints and her feelings as she struggled and the bad, have meaning, and are there for hard to emerge into my conscious life. Best of all, I growth and maturity. began to find my adult emotional connection to her. I realized with shock just how deeply I had buried my LG: What does your life involve now? Are you child-self under the ashes of painful memory. writing other books or involved in any other After completion of the first draft, my editor projects? pointed out a curious thing: The manuscript showed a natural progression of language and thoughts from a ERG: Today I continue writing books, painting in nine-year-old to a sixteen-year-old. This was not done oils, writing my daily reflections in journals, intentionally. It had happened naturally because I was reading at least one or two books a week, so immersed in telling her story that I actually became working along with Mother Nature in my that young girl again. beautiful garden, nurturing and loving After publication, a reviewer wrote: “Eleanor everything that grows there, making presenta- recounts her story with the chilling innocence of the tions to schools, community, and teacher child, thereby intensifying the scenes of prejudices, organizations. I’m enjoying the visits from bombings, and evacuations. She captures the mistrust, children and grandchildren, and the loving fear, and passions of wartime Germany with details company of my husband of 54 years. I am in we can physically sense. The story promises to forge a profoundly different place today after an intense bond with readers.” A reader wrote: writing my book. I feel an authenticity and “…your ability to convey events through the eyes and self-confidence I never had before that grew mind of a young girl is absolutely extraordinary. The out of the painful task of picking up the young Eleanor was wonderfully appealing, in part disparate pieces of my traumatic childhood because of the honesty with which you drew her and putting them into a story. The young girl character.” Behind reviews like these are two long and I are one! years of incredible emotional drain, dogged perseverance, hard work, and an awesome process of self- discovery. Finally, in a personal story, students look for touchstones that validate their own feelings. A middle school student from Plain City, Ohio, wrote, “When I first read your book I was so caught up in it that I didn’t pay attention to anything else going on around me. I felt like I was standing right there with you in all the scenes, watching and feeling what you were feeling. Your feelings were my feelings. I have since read it four times.” Encounters with readers show me again and again how amazingly interconnected we all are as human beings and how the written word has tremendous power.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

f20-30_TAR_Summer04 30 9/3/04, 9:25 AM Claudia Anne Katz & Karen Boran

Shared Reading Theatre: An Invitation to the World of Story

e are in a school library. The teachers are However, in our role as staff-developers, we have engaged in staff development. They have found that the middle school teachers we work with W just watched a videotape of a class have a great deal of trouble understanding the concept involved in Shared Reading Theater. They take turns of Shared Reading Theater. These teachers believe voicing their objections and asking questions: Shared Reading Theater is “just reading plays,” or worse, Round-robin Reading. To clarify the difference, “I thought I needed plays to make this work. Do I have to it would be useful to look at Reader’s Theater and rewrite books to look like plays?” Shared Reading and see how Shared Reading Theater “How is it different than Round-robin Reading?” is an amalgam of the two older, tried-and-true strate- “What about students who read badly? When they read gies and the farthest thing possible from Round-robin aloud, I die a little bit with every tortured word.” Reading.

“I read the text to my students. I believe they all understand it that way.” Readers’ Theatre:

“You know, I have to teach writing, too. Can I use this for Young & Vardell define Readers’ Theater as “a teaching writing?” presentation of text read aloud expressively and dramatically by two or more readers.” (396–406) The vignette above is not a creation. It really Johns and Berglund suggest that, “Meaning is con- occurred during an after-school staff development veyed to the audience, primarily through readers’ session. Students of differing abilities need to become expressive and interpretive readings rather than engaged in text by actually reading it. When the through actions, costumes, or props” and that stu- teacher reads the text to students, middle school dents can “read from commercially-prepared scripts or students have a strong tendency to “zone-out.” It is develop scripts from materials they are reading [. . .].” easy to blame the students for a lack of understand- (2002) ing. Teachers might say, correctly, “They just aren’t listening.” Still, teachers need to provide for the variety of Shared Reading: reading abilities in their classroom. In addition, to fully engage their students, they must offer ample time and According to Routman, Shared Reading involves opportunity for students to make personal connections learners viewing a text usually on chart paper or in a to the text, to the world, and to their lives outside of big book, observing the teacher fluently reading the the classroom. We believe that Shared Reading text, and then reading along with the teacher. In this Theater provides an ideal solution to these problems. conception, the teacher makes reading visible and,

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 31 9/3/04, 9:14 AM because this is done with an entire class, provides Shared Reading Theatre: differentiation for all the readers in the class. Students What is Shared Reading Theater and how is it and teachers become “partners in an enjoyable different from Readers’ Theater or Shared Reading? process and see themselves as ultimately capable” Unlike the Readers’ Theater strategy described by (139). Johns and Berglund, Shared Reading Theater does not require a script of any kind. Students involved in Round-robin Reading: Shared Reading Theater can use a variety of available In contrast, Round-robin Reading (Eldredge, texts: novels, short stories, newspaper articles, science Reutzel, & Hollingsworth, 1996) involves “turn-taking” texts, even math texts. It is not a “play-reading” oral reading. During a session of Round-robin Reading, strategy. There is no audience in the sense that students are sitting around the teacher waiting to take students are passive—all students have active roles to their turn to read aloud. Every student, no matter play. Everyone is involved in reading. It is like Shared what his or her ability might be, reads audibly. Reading because the reading process is observed, done Students must wait their turn to read; they cannot with an entire class, and provides differentiation actively read until their turn has arrived. This practice because all the students in the class read. It differs can lead less-skilled readers to feel that they have from Shared Reading because the teacher does not been singled-out by their inability to read the text model fluent reading while the students observe her smoothly. Less-skilled readers get little support beyond although the teacher might play a part as everyone immediate correction. Unfortunately, this can under- reads the text. In Shared Reading Theater, everyone mine their self-confidence, which has a negative effect has a copy of the text and plays a role, with lesson their ability to comprehend. skilled readers taking shorter or more predictable or When Eldredge, Reutzel, and Hollingsworth repetitious parts. In addition, in Shared Reading, as compared Shared Reading and Round-robin Reading in Routman describes it, the students read chorally after their 1996 study, they found that Shared Reading was the teacher has modeled fluent reading. Students the superior method. The use of Shared Reading was, engaged in Shared Reading Theater, however, read “effective in improving [. . .] reading development” only their assigned parts. This demands a higher level (220). They found that students in the “Shared of engagement while providing a genuine purpose for Reading group outperformed children in the Round- reading. The following chart attempts to clarify these robin Reading grouping in word-analysis knowledge, differences: fluency, vocabulary and comprehension” (218). Further, the Shared Reading strategy caused a signifi- Shared Reading Theatre and cant change in the ability of less skilled students to Less-skilled Readers: comprehend text (221). Often when nonfluent readers read aloud, their reading is interrupted not only by their own pauses but by other stu-

Shared Reading Theater Readers’ Theater Shared Reading Round-robin Reading Text Can be used with any text Requires a script Uses a single text that Uses a common text all readers can see Teacher’s Director or sometimes the Director or possibly Models reading Observes reading and offers Role teacher takes a role one of the roles immediate correction Student’s Every reader takes an active Some of the class Every reader reads no Students take turns Role part with less-skilled takes a role while matter their ability reading in a predictable readers taking shorter roles the rest of the class pattern becomes the audience

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 32 9/3/04, 9:14 AM dents (or teachers) who tell them the word that is causing delighted in Brian’s interest in reading. the pause. Whether done out of kindness, offered out of “But I want a character part or a reading part,” frustration, or offered because we don’t know other strate- insists Brian. gies, telling the dependent reader the word encourages more dependence [. . .]” (Beers, 2003). “OK. You can be one of the six people to read- around. You will be one of the narrators, and you’ll We found that, in order to prevent our students read every sixth paragraph. Brian, you are number one from “rescuing” their friends who were struggling reader. I need five more Read-around readers.” She with a particular word, we would assign one student surveys the room. Mrs. Carey assigns five other people to help the other students. This strategy gives the to read-around. These people read assigned para- reader time to try the word on his or her own—or graphs on the first two or three rounds. They locate guess the word’s meaning—before the class or the words they cannot read before it is their turn to read, teacher jumps in. When the reader feels the word is and Mrs. Carey tells them how to say a word if they beyond reach, he or she asks the delegated student to ask her about the word before they read their para- supply the word. This student teacher or assistant graph. Later they will read automatically when it is director can just supply the word or give hints for their turn. getting the word using an established class protocol Mrs. Carey instructs students to put their finger at for determining an unknown word—such as dividing the start of the story. For the first two pages, there is the word, looking for parts of familiar words, trying to little dialogue and students read their assigned say the first few letters, even trying to sound the word sections. Mrs. Carey stops the reading to discuss the out slowly. In this way the less-skilled reader is difference between “heavyweight” and “lightweight.” provided with a model of the embedded habits of A very knowledgeable student fills her in with the good readers (Beers 217). exact difference between the different weights in Sharing responsibility for the making of knowl- boxing including welterweight, which she hadn’t edge in the classroom with the students invites asked for. Mrs. Carey wonders what will happen to the everyone to participate in the story world. It offers an friendship between these two boys. easy method for teachers to assess how fluent the Mrs. Carey has assigned six volunteers to read the students have become and measure their prosody. Are next six sequenced paragraphs of the text. Another they pausing for dramatic effect? How are they using student was assigned to be the “he said—she said” punctuation to help us understand the author’s intent? reader, to read those parts of the text that lead into What signals do quotation marks give us? (An addi- dialog before and after quotation marks. tional benefit is that once our students become accustomed to reading this way, their appropriate use Having students read their texts twice silently— of punctuation marks in their writing improves once for content and once for character—improved dramatically—particularly quotation marks!) their confidence over time. Having students read for a Mrs. Carey, a middle school teacher in Chicago, specific purpose through the perspective of a specific uses Shared Reading Theater with her students as they character adds so much to what students get out of read a story from their anthology about two friends oral reading because they are genuinely engaged in a entering a boxing match. meaningful task for a purpose that makes sense to them. This improves student confidence over time. Mrs. Carey asks the students to take out their They read more smoothly and with more expression. literature books. “Brian, you’ll be assistant director again today.” What Texts to Use: “But I want a part this time,” Brian objects. “Assistant director is a part. You keep track of We have used Shared Reading Theater with young who plays which part. It’s an important role, and you adult literature (both fiction and non-fiction) across did a really good job last time.” Her affection for her the curriculum. Any well-written descriptive text, with students is apparent by the slight smile that crosses well-drawn characters or events, is fertile ground. her lips. She is pleased with them and especially With fiction, we did not limit ourselves to plays (the

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 33 9/3/04, 9:14 AM traditional arena of Readers’ Theatre). For example, grades, so I thought the singing bit would distract him.” Karen has used Shared Reading Theatre when she was “And you, Mr. Molloy,” Claudia asks Bill, a bit modeling Louis Sachar’s Holes in a sixth-grade uncomfortable in his fatherly role, “What are you classroom. She felt it was crucial to help the sixth- thinking when Phil tells you about the singing?” grade students understand the dynamics of Stanley’s “Lawsuit!” Bill quickly replies. The class cheers. visit to the Warden’s office by having students take on “She can’t do that, that teacher. It’s Phil’s first amend- the part of the Warden, Mr. Sir, Stanley, and the ment right to sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Who narrator. Other students listen and then ask questions does she think she is? I’ll have her job!” of the readers. Karen found that small snippets of texts “Mrs. Molloy,” Claudia turn to Olivia, “What do read in this fashion were sufficient—it was not you make of this?” necessary to treat entire texts this way. After Shared “I’m just confused. I don’t get it. Why is he Reading Theater, she sends students off to read the singing in class? Anyway,” Olivia adds, “I just want to next section of text on their own. be sure everyone has enough to eat. That’s what my Claudia has found that a text like Avi’s Nothing mom would care about.” But the Truth is just right for Shared Reading Theatre Ariel, a class member without a major role, because it is written in dialog, notes, memos, phone chimes in. “That’s so true. My mother is only con- conversations, and newspaper reports. This post- cerned about our eating. We have to finish all our food.” modern style provides plenty of parts for everyone in Students become so involved in their roles, they the class. She experimented with this method when take their personalities outside the class. After finish- she was modeling a reading lesson in an eighth-grade ing Nothing But the Truth, Greg, who had played Phil class: Molloy for the run of the book, followed Claudia all the way to the lunch room arguing in favor of Phil The Malloy family is sitting down to dinner discussing the time-honored family topic, “school.” Phillip Molloy turns to Molloy’s point of view, “Look, I had to lie. It meant so his father, “What would you say if a teacher said I wasn’t much to my dad. I couldn’t just tell him I’d blown it allowed to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’?” by messing up on a stupid English exam. He’d never “What?” Mr. Malloy replies. He cannot believe his ears. Maybe understand.” he is hard of hearing. Greg had truly entered the world of story.

Phil, impatiently, “Singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”

Mr. Molloy is shocked, “Anywhere?” Writing as an Extension:

Phil is terse now. Apparently, his father can’t understand We often ask our students to stop and write an anything. “In class.” answer to a reflective question through the eyes of Mrs. Molloy chimes in, “I don’t understand. What’s this have their character. Karen has modeled this using Karen to do with what your father asked—your running? Singing Hesse’s Witness with ninth grade students. In the in the middle of class?” (Avi, 51). [The dialog is Avi’s; the book, thirteen characters tell the story of the same italicized text is Claudia’s.] event from thirteen different perspectives, and Karen’s Claudia interrupts the reading, and everyone in the students love to argue from their character’s perspec- class writes furiously. Then there is a minute of talk. tive about what really happened. Because the author She turns to the student playing Phillip Malloy and does not tell the reader everything, Karen’s students asks, “Phil, why did you say that to your father?” write powerful passages that fill in some of these gaps. Greg, Phil for the last 53 pages, says, “I just felt These passages are revised and rehearsed and become like it. I felt I couldn’t tell him the truth.” the center of the students’ culminating project. “Why couldn’t you tell him the truth? The truth is In another instance, Karen had ninth-graders write important, isn’t it? Why did you bring up the part letters to other characters in Witness explaining their about the singing?” behavior. Students read these letters aloud, creating ad- “I wanted to get him off the topic of the track ditional refinements to their understanding of the story. team. I felt bad about not being on the team. I don’t In the book, a black woman dies from exposure. want him to guess that I couldn’t join because of my Percelle, the town’s sixty-year-old constable, refuses to

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 34 9/3/04, 9:15 AM accept responsibility. This hands-off attitude allows • Stop reading occasionally to point out meaning- the Klan to gain a foothold in this small Vermont making strategies, salient vocabulary, or the focus town. Demetra, writing in the role of Leonora, the of a recent mini-lesson such as figures of speech. twelve-year-old protagonist in Witness, to Percelle, the • After reading, invite students to reflect on events in constable, writes, their journals, answer questions in the role of the “Why did you let my mother die? character they played, or write letters to other Why didn’t you help us? characters. What did we ever do to you?” This passionate response helps Demetra and her Conclusion: classmates understand in tangible ways the reality of We have combined two classic classroom strate- the Klan’s presence and the fear and terror it engen- gies, Readers’ Theater and Shared Reading, into one dered. large meta-strategy, Shared Reading Theater. Shared Reading Theater goes one step beyond traditional The Procedure: Readers’ Theater by combining the reading of any text • Determine a text you might want to read with the with the best features of the Shared Reading approach. entire class. This text can be more difficult than the Two weeks later, we return to our staff-develop- average student is reading because you will be ment school and ask how Shared Reading Theater has there to scaffold the text with the students. worked. Previously, the teachers had read the text • Determine what reading roles might be available. aloud to their students because they felt that it was Assign roles. You might uncover additional roles as the only way to include less-skilled readers. After you read. We have mentioned several roles in this trying Shared Reading Theater and observing their article. students’ engagement with this strategy, they offer • Character Readers these observations in their written evaluations: • He said/she said Reader “I was amazed. I didn’t know my students could • Bold Reader do that.” • Regular Reader “They were so engaged in the text. They really • Number Reader knew what was going on.” • Italics Reader “The post-reading discussions were so much • Parenthesis Reader better. I didn’t have to pull so hard.” • Date Reader “When students took on the role of a character, • Box Reader (The person who reads everything they became the character with real conviction.” printed in boxes.) “This approach brought the story world into my • Underlined Reader classroom.” • Student teacher Reader • Assistant Director Works Cited • Do some pre-reading activity before entering the Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do. text. Look at the cover or the graphs and pictures. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. Eldredge, J. Lloyd, D. Ray Reutzel, and Paul M. Hollingsworth. Introduce essential vocabulary words. “Comparing Effectiveness of Two Oral Reading Practices: • When introducing the strategy to the class, allow Round-robin Reading and the Shared Book Experience.” the students who are reading together to practice Journal of Literacy Research 60 (1996): 201-225. before reading to the audience. This provides for Johns, Jerry, & Roberta Berglund. Strategies for Content Area smoother reading, a better understanding of the Learning. Iowa: Kendall-Hunt Publishers, 2002. Routman, Regie. Reading Eessentials: The Specifics You Need content, and better modeling for the class. to Teach Reading Well. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. • Jump into the text and begin to read, or invite Young, Terrell A. & Sylvia M. Vardell. “Weaving Readers’ Theatre students to read the text themselves, locating and and Nonfiction into the Curriculum.” Reading Teacher, 46 focusing on their roles. (1993): 396–406.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 35 9/3/04, 9:15 AM Appendix Non-Fiction: Good books for Shared Reading Armstrong, Jennifer. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Theatre for Middle Level Students: Shackleton and the Endurance. New York: Fiction: Crown Books for Young Children, 2000. Ablelove, Joan. Go, and Come Back. New York: Bridges, Ruby. Through My Eyes. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Scholastic Press, 1999. Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Puffin, Cooper, Michael L. Bound for the Promised Land: 1999. The Great Black Migration. New York: Dutton Avi. Nothing But the Truth. New York: Orchard Children’s Books, 1995. Books, 1991. Duggleby, John. Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Bunting, Eve. Smoky Nights. Illustrated by David Lawrence. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, Diaz. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Com- 1998. pany, 1994. Fradin, Dennis Brindell. Bound for the North Star: Curtis, Christopher Paul. Bud, Not Buddy. New True Stories of Fugitive Slaves. New York: York: Delacorte Press, 1999. Clarion Books, 2000. Dumas, Alexander. The Three Musketeers. Retold Gorrell, Gina K. North Star to Freedom: The Story of by Michael Leitch. Illustrated by Victor Ambus. the Underground Railroad. New York: Delacorte New York: Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 2000. Press, 1996. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. The Number Devil: A Freedman, Russell. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and Mathematical Adventure. Illustrated by Susanne the Crusade Against Child Labor. New York: Berner Rotraut. Translated by Michael Henry Scholastic, 1994. Heim. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1997. Levine, Ellen. Darkness Over Denmark: The Danish Hesse, Karen. Witness. New York: Hyperion Books Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews. New for Children, 2001. York: Holiday House, 2000. Mikaelsen, Ben. Touching Spirit Bear. New York: Murphy, Jim. Blizzard: The Storm That Changed HarperCollins, 2001. America. New York: Scholastic, 2000. Myers, Walter Dean. A Handbook for Boys. New Murphy, Jim. The Great Fire. New York: Scholastic, York: HarperCollins, 2002. 1995. Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: Rumford, James. Seeker of Knowledge: The Man HarperCollins, 1999. Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Boston, Na, An. A Step From Heaven. Asheville, NC: Front MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Street, 2001. Sis, Peter. Starry Messenger. New York: Farrar, Park, Linda Sue. A Single Shard. New York: Dell Strauss, Giroux, 1998. Yearling, 2001. Sis, Peter. Tibet Through the Red Box, New York: Ryan, Pam Munoz. Esperanza Rising. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1996. Scholastic, 2000. Warren, Andrea. Orphan Train Riders: One Boy’s Spinelli, Jerry. Maniac Magee. New York: Scholas- True Story, New York: Scholastic, 1996. tic, 1990. Watkins, R. Slavery: Bondage Through History. Whelan, Gloria. Homeless Bird. New York: Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, HarperCollins, 2000. 2001. Wolff, Virginia Ewer. Make Lemonade. New York: Wormser, Richard. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Scholastic, 1993. New York: Franklin Watts, 1999.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

g31-36_TAR_Summer04 36 9/3/04, 9:15 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

. . ALAN

ould REVIEW

cup’s

omen

Horror

Holli Keel

ucson, AZ

cumcision.

eida Golden

. But he is not

Manhattan, KS

en about voodoo,

ISBN: 0618309551

ISBN: 0-8109-4824-9

, self-fulfillment, and

e that reveres obesity e that reveres

e marriage, or in the case e marriage,

ash, Ken realizes what he realizes ash, Ken

erything he wants from his from erything he wants

en comes out unscathed. A

y then fight against Butter

at Lowery Collins states that she at Lowery

Sabine educates K

of digging up Roger’s grave. of digging up Roger’s

, insecurities, and desire for a better life and desire , insecurities,

emony of the cutting, female cir emony

ounded him. The

sing a baby. It is in this hut that the older w sing a baby.

oger, dies in a plane cr oger,

The Fattening Hut, The Fattening

by William Sleator by

, danger, murder, and creepy twists Sleator is famous for and creepy murder, , danger,

er die. Cheri Buttercup advertises “Freedom from death,” and from “Freedom advertises Cheri Buttercup er die.

003, 186 pp., $15.00 003,

esonate throughout the human community” (p.186). I w esonate throughout

Pat Lowery Collins Lowery Pat Self-image

e sharks are known to attack, but K known e sharks are

e isolated in the hut for fattening befor

ongly. However, this is a book about self-image However, ongly.

ould speak so str

ants most of all is to ne

en doesn’t want to die. Ever. Ken is a teenager who gets e Ken Ever. to die. en doesn’t want

en decides he’s ready for the ultimate challenge: to face death. He goes scuba diving ready en decides he’s

vil magic.

The Fattening Hut Houghton Mifflin Co., 2 In the author’s notes at the end of In the author’s hoped the book will “r say that she succeeded with her quest. say Helen is a 14-year-old native girl of a mythical island now ready to spend time in the ready island now girl of a mythical native Helen is a 14-year-old self-accomplishment, all concepts with which adolescents struggle fattening hut. Girls ar of Helen’s sister Miduna, while nur of Helen’s will come one night to perform the ritual cer This is a powerful tale of adolescent longings This is a powerful Hard to imagine, in our culture of thinness, a book about a cultur of thinness, in our culture to imagine, Hard w

The Boy Who Couldn’t Die The Boy Amulet Books, 2004, 162 pp., $16.95 2004, Amulet Books, K rich parents. But after his friend, R rich parents. w she delivers. When Ken touches a hot pan, he is not burned. When he steals the girl- When Ken she delivers. friend of a bully at school, the bully cannot beat him up. He is invincible prepared for the dreams—of being buried aliv for the dreams—of prepared K on a little island wher new friend, Sabine, discovers his invincible natur discovers friend, Sabine, new zombies, and the evil magic that has surr and the evil zombies, e This book is full of zombies Just when you think you’ve solved everything, there’s a twist you didn’t see coming. a twist you there’s everything, solved think you’ve Just when you

YA Book Reviews YA

, Nick

wn until

. Deter-

eep you

Mystery

Provo, UT Provo,

empe, AZ empe,

emerged to emerged

ed house in

wn anyone’s

e about others

, but as tempera-

History/Disease

Myrna Dee Marler

An American Plague

Heiser-Washington

ISBN: 0-395-77608-2

ISBN: 1-58234-949-5

esident Washington, his esident Washington,

ept his town when he ept his town

Non-Fiction/American

ance, a mysterious disease a mysterious ance,

s face, such as feeling lik s face,

a chill running do

el, Jim Murphy recounts the story recounts el, Jim Murphy

ed along the docks

oke down, a heroic few, including few, a heroic down, oke

e yourself. You take a walk by a by a walk take You e yourself.

side. This left only the poor to cope with side.

Clip & File

aised by his Uncle Jack, is also being aised by

d it, including Pr

elationship with F

oblems teenager

793

an outcast because of her nationality

eat story and good ending and will k

son responsible for ruining his name son responsible

, this book will lea

, sickness spread rapidly among the bustling population of rapidly , sickness spread

s a history lesson about a serious time when illness

ge Washington lived and held office in a borr lived ge Washington

ce and cure were much debated but ultimately unkno were ce and cure

, two or three doctors, and a handful of civic leader doctors, or three , two

rue and Terrifying

ants, had fled to the country ants,

. Nick, an orphan being r

. First afflicted were the people who liv afflicted were . First

ound town that he knows he didn’t commit. Confused and upset, that he knows ound town

eflection and the per

ed by the superhuman efforts of a minority concerned mor ed by

by James Lincoln Collier by

ou look in it, you have no reflection. This is the dilemma that faces no reflection. have ou look in it, you

orried about the United States’ r

. In prose as gripping and suspenseful as a no . In prose

Jim Murphy

as a baby.

ou don’t fit it, but it also offer

0,000 people. Within weeks, those who could affor Within weeks, 0,000 people.

n late summer of 1793, while Geor

the 20th century. As the dead piled up and city services br century. the 20th

handle the crisis An American Plague: The T of a city in chaos sa Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1 Story of the Yellow than themselves. In today’s atmosphere heavy with the threat of bioterrorism, of bioterrorism, with the threat heavy atmosphere In today’s than themselves. the ravages of a disease whose sour the ravages readers. for young particular resonance will have Philadelphia and w began to cripple the city of the black community members

5 cabinet, and other public serv by Clarion, 2003, 165 pp., $17.00 Clarion, 2003, I tures rose and humidity clogged the air rose tures

The Empty Mirror Bloomsbury Press, 2004, 192 pp., $16.95 2004, Bloomsbury Press, about his past and the influenza epidemic that sw learns more Imagine waking up one morning feeling not quite lik Imagine waking w pond and when y suspenseful scenes With innumerable 13-year-old Nick Hodges 13-year-old Not only does the book deal with pr spine. accused of crimes ar y Nick can only confide in his friend, Gyps This book has a gr towns. entire destroyed mined to find his r toes the whole time on your 37

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 37 9/3/04, 9:23 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

instructions for her to follo

Milkweed Editions, 2004, 192 pp., $16.95 In rural Alabama during the Depr covers the cruelty of the financial w of the road by her family because of their po

She gives herself a new identity as a bo may be treated better. She discovers a widow in need of her help with chor Hard Times for Jake Smith Going for the Record begins a new life fulfilling her passion for gar Eerdmans Books for Y gains friendship with a neighbor girl and with a bo The summer befor W gional team, is invited to a national camp, and is r But her self-absorbed dedication to soccer is challenged when she learns her chief sup- porter, her father, has terminal pancr

ing. MaryJake also finds out secr parents’ initial instructions Y r MaryJake possessed for family her family find themselv go through fear and anger w

How can someone deal with pain with dignity? Ho the loss of a loved one? How do we deal with the v predictable novel, but Swanson’s story leads us to empathize and to hope w their courage to deal with death and loss and dignity. Sw

elative or friend who liv

oung readers who appreciate historical stories of the 193

atch as their father tries to cope with e

eiczynkowski’s soccer aspirations. She makes the Olympic De

ALAN anson asks hard questions anyone facing suffering must ask. Wh REVIEW

e her senior year in high school, e

ugRaes 04 1 p,$.0ISBN: 0-8028-5273-4 oung Readers, 2004, 217 pp., $8.00

es on a devastating path as the

, denial, hope, bargaining, and resignation. They also have to

JleA wno Dealing with Terminal Illness/ Soccer Julie A. Swanson

ed during that time

w a specific path in the w

, along with a pr

Ale igr edro Historical Fiction Aileen Kilgore Henderson

ession, a 12-year-old girl named MaryJak

ets she never dreamed possible, resulting from her

eatic cancer with only thr

oes of that time period, when she is left on the side

xtreme pain and still maintain his sense of contr

y called Jake Smith, because she thinks bo

ecious heirloom.

, will appreciate the courage and love

w can people continue their liv

ecruited by coaches at major univ

dening and her lo

oid in our hearts? This ma

erty. Hurt and disillusioned b

y who has the same lo

Clip & File

erything is coming together for Leah

y learn to cope with the illness

oods, she chooses a differ

ee months to live. Leah and

0s, and who may have a

elopmental Program’s re-

ISBN: 1-57131-648-5

y is this happening?

Jeanne M. McGlinn

for animals. She

Vicki Boartfield

y seem to be a

Asheville, NC

e might have

for garden-

e soon dis-

es faced by

empe, AZ

ent path.

ersities.

y their

es and

. They

YA Reviews Book

and frightful past. Soon, the team of thr London’s elite that could destr R book. While the w ing, high school-le

lives are changed as the

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray rhr ok,20,34p. 1.5ISBN: 0439546567 is a 17-year-old boy following in his father’ Orchard Books, 2004, 304 pp., $16.95 mentor, Cathaline, helps in his hunts for an The shadows and dark alleyways of London are seething with m horrors that could haunt childr with beastly creatures called wych-kin. Townspeople are aware of the unspeak horrors that stalk London’ shop early to avoid inevitable death if one cr who can protect the public fr

The Golden Hour Amulet Books, 2004, 272 pp., $16.95 Ro cently deceased mother’ and unlock the secr tal only in the “golden hour Nina flees her grief-filled life Re adventure. The observations Rowan makes add intelligent fun in his “T My Life Stinks,” which form a loose fr of French intrigue in 1789 mak adolescent characters are believable and likeable—a good choice for r challenge. A sequel is planned b Mad TV

eaders who like a bit of horror and gore along with a good m

olution. This novel is contemporary fiction, combined with fantas

an and Nina Popplewell’s father sends them to spend the summer with their r

ording is sometimes o

ets to abandoned Ow

el readers should enjoy it.

MiaWlim Fantasy/Time Travel Maiya Williams

y meet a young girl, Alaizabel, who seems to carry a m

s eccentric aunts in Maine

s streets at night, and most hide in their homes and close

,” “the short period of time betw

om these nightmarish cr

, the other three follow her to Paris during the French

es for rollicking, energetic action and suspense

en in their dreams. The Old Quarter of London cr

London, turning po

y the author, a writer and producer for

b hi odn Adventure/Horror by Chris Wooding

ame for the plot. Getting lost in the machinations

ee band together to unco

atannauk resort; it becomes a time-tr

erly descriptive and some terms ar

s footsteps as a legendary wy

ything evil that lurks in the shado

osses a wych-kin’s path. The only ones

. They meet twins Xanthe and Xavier

eatures are wych hunters. Thaniel

er over to the wych-kin.

een day and night.” When

stery will enjoy this

sterious, frightening

ISBN: 0-8109-4823-0

er a sinister plot b

Cassandra Haggard

eaders who like a

y and historical

op Ten Reasons

ch-hunter. His

Judith Hayn

Chicago, IL

ugrats

empe, AZ

e confus-

, and the

sterious

. Their

el por-

eeps

able

and

e- 38 y

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 38 9/3/04, 9:23 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

, a ALAN

aul,

ough REVIEW

e holi-

cialism

es. Each es.

ermillion, SD

eida Golden

e a decision

eflect on her

Lisa A. Hazlett

ed.

, but those seek-

Manhattan, KS

ISBN: 0618263632

ants to play chess ants to play

al’s comeuppance and al’s

, and his mother loses her

olai is looking for Stass

y originally thought the

y this fast, easy read. y this fast, easy

oblems. He exits the group with the group He exits oblems.

e his father’s hospital homecoming. e his father’s

es. Phebe must mak es.

s problem, they find friendship and a they s problem,

ous plot contrivances (Santa advises P ous plot contrivances

e the spotlight, not to dance for the sak

ground,” all students with past negativ ground,”

y endings will enjo

orld champion, but he w

othy read. The absence of season commer read. othy

lost the passion. Nik

beyond his current skill level. Both meet thr skill level. his current beyond

een the two characters’ stories, but it is easy to but it is easy stories, characters’ een the two

ences make it difficult for them to become friends ences make

en in because his father has disappear

andalism, but after escalating to planning serious criminal

om personal, not seasonal, pr om personal,

es, neither finding what the es,

by Garret Freymann-Weyr Garret by Friendship/Determination

el with only happ

003, 149 pp., $15.00 003,

e Christmas, with their various decorations and traditions redefining and traditions decorations with their various e Christmas,

ates their refurbished house befor ates their refurbished

ed while decorating, setting their house ablaze ed while decorating,

, and Nikolai, a chess player, are searching for their futur searching are a chess player, , and Nikolai,

to help him mo

olai has been tak

by Kieran Scott Kieran by Fiction/Christmas

his father is injur

y to move on with their liv y to move

aul and his family ador

enewed spirits and decor enewed

equired.

Jingle Boy Delacorte Press, 2003, 230 pp., $9.95 230 2003, Delacorte Press, ISBN: 0-385-73223-2 P

“ostentatious.” This year, 17-year-old Paul’s cheer sours after purchasing an expensive necklace an expensive after purchasing cheer sours Paul’s 17-year-old This year, “ostentatious.” for his girlfriend, then seeing her kissing the mall Santa in the parking lot and being summarily dumped. Wo this story begins sharply but numer Paul, by Narrated he discovers his mother’s boss and mall Santa stealing, causing his riv his mother’s he discovers days. turn this into a fr etc.) promotion, mother’s The group initially engages in minor v The group (possible discussion topics) further lighten the story diversity issues and religious activities, Paul realizes his anger is fr realizes Paul activities, ing an amusing Christmas no r

job. In anger, Paul joins the “Anti-Christmas Under joins the “Anti-Christmas Paul In anger, job.

The Kings are Already Here Houghton Mifflin Co., 2 Phebe, a ballet dancer Phebe, is talented and at the defining moment of their liv about dancing when she seems to ha master chess pla Phebe’s father, a diplomat in Switzerland. Phebe spends the summer to r a diplomat in Switzerland. father, Phebe’s dancing, and Nik

Nikolai is not interested in becoming w is not interested Nikolai beautifully. Phebe has only been taught to cr beautifully. of dancing well, and thus the differ of dancing well, The book moves back and forth betw The book moves follow. As each character is drawn into the other’ is drawn As each character follow. wa r

ys-

YA Book Reviews YA

es of the

empe, AZ empe,

ortunately,

Ann Opseth

of the war’s

other, Henry, other,

. As a murder

andma passes

Manhattan, KS

Todd Goodson Todd

The novel explores The novel

stery/Puritanism

ar through the eyes of the eyes ar through

s justification for it.

ISBN: 0-618-27597-5

y march off to victory, y march

ISBN: 0-618-35008-X

xt to pair with historical

ar, leaving him behind with his leaving ar,

, Jack, and older br

en a good read-aloud choice for en a good read-aloud

al of his distant father

Clip & File

ery and the South’

y are fighting. As scant ne y are

Historical Fiction/My

y in 1630, this novel explores the mystery explores this novel y in 1630,

onment, our protagonist struggles with issues onment, our protagonist

. It would be a good te . It would

ard, which would have doomed the remaining have which would ard,

. He wants to prove himself in the e to prove . He wants

McMullen Historical Fiction

oam the countryside. Shanks risks his life to defend oam the countryside.

en, gender roles, approaches to punishment, and s approaches en, gender roles,

contrasts the way the children and the adults identify the children the way contrasts

es the attention and appr

vides an interesting view of Puritan cultur view vides an interesting

Margaret

2003, 148 pp., $15.00 2003,

2004, 136 pp., $15.00 2004,

ate for the Russells; Grandpa abandons them, and Gr Grandpa ate for the Russells;

ough the eyes of 11-year-old John Bradford, the son of Governor William the son of Governor John Bradford, of 11-year-old ough the eyes

der case in Plymouth Colon

, and lynch mobs r

is a stomach-churning look at life during the Civil W

A Killing in Plymouth Colony

ound the Strong

. His mother gives birth to a baby girl, while their food supply dwindles a birth to a baby . His mother gives

stery, stery,

Carol Otis Hurst and Rebecca Otis and Rebecca Otis Hurst Carol

ussells to starvation.

contemporary adolescents should find familiar contemporary

aw And despite the historical envir tems of governance.

How I Found the Strong How A Killing in Plymouth Colony by Circumstances become desper Circumstances Houghton Mifflin Compan of its childr expectations the community’s Eleven-year-old Shanks Russell watches in frustration as his father in frustration watches Shanks Russell Eleven-year-old depart their tiny Mississippi farm for the battlefields of the Civil W depart their tiny an opportunity to escape northw Buck foregoes Based on an actual mur mother, grandparents, and their slave, Buck. Although certain that the and their slave, grandparents, mother, the crime thr surrounding and he especially cr community, Shanks isn’t as certain about the cause for which the Bradford. my progress trickles in, Shanks questions the justice of sla progress Houghton Mifflin Compan As historical fiction, the book pr resolution. a predictable toward suspects and work The novel is best suited to middle school students The novel studies of the Puritans and the early colonial period, perhaps e a boy journeying toward manhood. It is a compelling story about a trying time in American toward journeying a boy that time period. students exploring R history. Jack Russell returns from the war as hostility toward Negroes (now freed by the Emancipation by freed (now Negroes as hostility toward the war from returns Jack Russell Proclamation) escalates Proclamation) Buck from a lynch mob, inspiring his father to help Buck, too. a lynch mob, Buck from How I 39

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 39 9/3/04, 9:24 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

L The Last of the Roundup Bo by Fr

This is a great read! If you are not from Texas, the accent might hold y book. However, it doesn’t take you very long before you settle in to the accent. The opening pages ar Sally Jo Walker, a 16-year-old newlywed who has been slapped one too man Holiday House, 2004, 228 pp., $16.95 band, Bobby James Walker. The last name W A sequel to tiently leaves her while she is in a gas station/conv

the backdrop of the Kansas prairie in the years following the Civil War. The novel is around for him and tak told from two points of view: Tom, a young man transplanted to the har The last stop is Jackson Beach, Florida, wher environment from a more privileged Virginia upbringing, and Evie movie house at night and w prosperous rancher for whom T mentally challenged char we r coming of age sort of book that captiv conform to traditional norms, Evie wants to work the ranch. And his relationship with Evie helps Tom learn to adapt his o The Last of the Roundup Boys growth in response to the societal change

esistance to the accepted gender r

etting Go of Bobb

ances Foster Books, 2004, 144 pp., $16.00

Valerie Hobbs

ALAN REVIEW trace the development of their emer

Grasslands

e a letter written b

y James, Or How I Found My Self of Steam

es the next bus wherever it is going.

acter Dooley and Effaline, a 15-year-old pregnant runaway. This is a

The Last of the R

orks at Thelma’s Cafe by day. Eventually she mak

is a nice historical no

om is employed, Through the eyes of these young people

ated me.

wn expectations regarding gender.

DbaSeyHistorical Fiction Debra Seely

y Jody, the main character in the book. Her full name is

oles of the day. While her family e

alker is great symbolism for the couple

ging relationship, but w

oundup Boys

e Jody finds her self of steam. She sleeps in the

enience store bathroom, but she doesn’t w

Clip & File

el, exploring the need for per

xplores gender issues against

ou back from getting into the

ISBN: 0-8234-1814-6

, the daughter of the

e also explore their

ISBN: 0374343845

y times by her hus-

es friends with the

Todd Goodson

Manhattan, KS

Self-discovery

Sherri Stradling

xpects her to

sh Kansas

. He impa-

empe, AZ

sonal

YA Reviews Book

ait

Gloria Russell North of Everything Gloria. Questions surr is a symbol of the cycle of death, birth, and r Candlewick Press, 2004, 80 pp., $15.99 r The Legacy of Gloria Russell family begins to br R the Winooski in V end, Billy’s daring voyage takes him on a journe P ness of the Ozarks as he unearths Set in the sleepy town of Kelseyville, Missouri, and the majestic Ozark Mountains ve K the seasons “north of e

several years in his life when his family mo with the meaning of friendship and family

new baby, until the father is diagnosed with cancer Each person in the family deals with the r the courage to go on, realizing that “Dad’ R the ways/we learn to keep on breathing.”

This touching verse-novel will remind readers of several other recently published books which others are in need. Billy’s search for truth brings him closer to under use poetry to tell a story one he loved, while teaching him the importance of thinking for himself and carving his o in life.

Sparrow

ounding his own family. So, Billy sets off on a quest wher

oet Crist-Evans uses sparse, but evocative, language to create an emotional r

eaders will enjoy this fast-paced, heartw

elseyville has been k

andom House, 2004, 224 pp., $15.95

se-novel about rebirth and hope. The prologue introduces this theme b

by Karen Hesse.

tells of Billy James

ermont. They start over and are happy working the land and then e

eak apart, and he faces the socially discar

ounding Gloria’s death plague Billy

eeping for decades

erything” where fall turns to winter and then spring. This seasonal change

b ri rs-vn Dealing with Terminal Illness/ by Craig Crist-Evans

, such as

Almost Forever

, 12, as he struggles with the sudden death of his best friend,

by Sheri L. Gilbert

, not only the answ

eality of death in differ

s spirit lives/in every blade of grass,/in every tree, in all

arming novel. By weaving the beauty and a

, Gilbert shows how powerful one voice can be when

es from Miami, Florida, to a farm along the banks of

ebirth which the y

y of self discovery through the vast green wilder-

Maria Testa and

ers to Gloria’s death, but also the secr

, who begins to unco

e his friendships ar

ded and puzzling Josef Satan. In the

ent ways, but in the end the

oung narrator encounters during

Out of the Dust

standing the death of some-

y describing the c

ISBN: 0-7636-2098-X

ISBN: 0375828230

Jeanne M. McGlinn

Cycle of Rebirth

e challenged, his

er mysteries sur-

esponse in this

Jason Corbett

Asheville, NC

The Legacy of

and

xpecting a

empe, AZ

of nature

Aleutian

wn path

enture

y find

cle of 40 ets

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 40 9/3/04, 9:24 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

0-9 ALAN REVIEW

anger

emote

om her

e forced

as three.

wing her

y embark

Mesa, AZ

ollie Welch

. Before they . Before

ching for her

Cleveland, OH Cleveland,

Susan Malarkey

el shows danger el shows

or, Fiona, a teen or,

. Teens, especially . Teens,

ISBN: 1-55285-53

atch in horror as its atch in horror

eep its readers think- eep its readers

tells the story of this

y years. Poor commu- Poor y years.

ISBN: 0-385-90132-1(GLB)

d for two nights in a snow cave, nights in a snow d for two

el marked by cliffhanging chap- by el marked

wboarder. From this initial disas- From wboarder.

Ostrich Eye

onder if the man is follo

asse. Although this short book accentu- asse.

e Evans and Moses Wilson as the e Evans

esults in disaster; the no

eak, 15-year-old Peter Montpetit, a type-A Peter eak, 15-year-old

e the freezing wilderness e the freezing

oung adulthood when the tall blonde str

, the story is balanced when the teens ar

arning.

ealistic and unsettling and will k

enee and Tony’s eyes. eyes. enee and Tony’s

they uncover two bodies and one surviv two uncover they

craft makes a spiral slide down the mountain. Zooming to slide down a spiral makes craft

, Renee, her stepfather, Tony, and her 7-year-old half-sister and her 7-year-old Tony, her stepfather, , Renee,

emember at all because he left for good when she w

e an avalanche, sit out a blizzar e an avalanche,

spot a rival company’s helicopter and w company’s spot a rival

ough the perspective of a responsible teen-ager sear of a responsible ough the perspective

om a plunge into an ice cr

el tells a gripping story of adolescence and misplaced trust. Intended

Beth Cooley Coming of Age/Trust

by Pam Withers Pam by Coming of Age/Adventure

alrus Books, 2004, 155 pp., $6.95 2004, alrus Books,

wn identity in her family and in her y

otors clip a cliff, and the air otors

eluctant readers, will enjoy this fast-paced action no will enjoy eluctant readers,

Ostrich Eye Peak Survival W Visiting British Columbia during spring br personality, is stoked to be with friends Jak is stoked personality, on a ski/snowboard adventure. Eagle Heli-Ski Tours will helicopter them to a r Eagle Heli-Ski Tours adventure. on a ski/snowboard peak, where they will test their skills hoping to become Junior Guides they peak, where begin skiing, the bo r Delacorte Press, 2004, 180 pp., $15.95 2004, Delacorte Press, the passenger help rescue In the ninth grade, Ginger is almost six feet tall. She inherited her height fr In the ninth grade, Britain, who happens to be a champion sno girl from father, whom she doesn’t r father, the four teens surviv ter, and must escape fr Ginger lives with her mother Ginger lives ates a number of death-defying scenes Vivian who is the apple of R and use their talents to surviv to cooperate blended family thr aged 12 and up, it is r for readers r o the book. put down have after they ing well begins to show up around town. Ginger begins to w town. up around begins to show and if he might possibly be the father she has not seen for so man nication between Ginger and her mother r nication between does not always come with a clear w does not always This poignant no

ters and realistic snowboarding and skiing action. snowboarding and realistic ters

ate

xts.

YA Book Reviews YA

eal event

ermillion, SD

achiever in a achiever

eceived by his by eceived

Lisa A. Hazlett

and enlistment

Manhattan, KS

Todd Goodson Todd

s: he’s quit school, s: he’s

stery. Troubled by Troubled stery.

e David ships out in e David

ISBN: 0-618-31116-5

ISBN: 0-385-73026-8

, and after David’s unit , and after David’s

Still, one voice lessens Still, one voice

s setting and events.

as the intended victim.

eminiscing about their trip

ation, her parents send ation, her parents

s focus, Vietnam era details Vietnam era s focus,

s historical and emotional conte

Clip & File

cel was involved. Emily realizes she Emily realizes involved. cel was

, his 14-year-old brother. At their father’s At brother. , his 14-year-old

others who mirror themselves and their themselves who mirror others

es are the result of an all-too-r the result es are

standing of the story’

eloped by a famous educator to motiv eloped by

ys.

der, Emily Wood is a classic under Emily Wood der,

ough short, fast-paced chapter

. To address her lack of motiv address . To

e who she can trust. Suspense mounts when another

vid’s, as reasons for his initial disdain of Ste as reasons vid’s,

gely devoid of this period’ gely devoid

ed trip experiences create a brotherly bond. a brotherly create ed trip experiences

vid translates into poor school performance vid translates

by Don Brown by Coming of Age/Adventure

vid’s estrangement with Ste estrangement vid’s

vides hope for both bo

to their potential.

e that hints at mur

003, 135 pp., $15.00 003,

and wants to fight in Vietnam. This information is poorly r and wants

cel is attacked, and Emily is convinced she w cel is attacked,

cel, a summer camp de

others reluctantly embark on a summer canoe trip befor reluctantly others

, Joan Lowery Nixon delivers another fast-paced m delivers Nixon , Joan Lowery

Joan Lowery Nixon Joan Lowery Mystery

is an enjoyable mystery, best suited to middle school students and strug- mystery, is an enjoyable

Nightmare

Camp Excel, Emily learns that her nightmar Camp Excel,

Nightmare Our Time on the River Delacourte Press, 2003, 166 pp., $15.95 2003, Delacourte Press, Houghton Mifflin, 2 she witnessed as a child, and someone at Camp Ex With but she is not sur is in danger, a recurring nightmar a recurring student at Camp Ex College freshman David returns home during December 1968 with shocking ne returns David College freshman family that emphasizes success Nightmare enlisted in the arm Emily to Camp Ex gling readers. and heightens Da parents, adolescents to achie suggestion, the br At As hoped, their shar September. notably Da development, character Steve’s subsequent fear for Da Steve’s is hit, David returns with a possible hearing loss and uncertain futur returns is hit, David and planning another pr should easily identify with these br boys Middle-level peers. Vietnam era explanations will enhance under explanations Vietnam era peers. Steve narrates this slice-of-life story thr narrates Steve

are vague and contradictory. Moreover, as the canoe trip is the story’ Moreover, and contradictory. vague are are sketchy, creating a setting lar creating sketchy, are 41

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 41 9/3/04, 9:24 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

Summer Boys The Presence: A Ghost Story coatc 04 1 p,$.9ISBN: 0-439-54020-8 Scholastic, 2004, 214 pp., $8.99 Clarion Books, 2003, 195 pp., $15.00 Catherine flies to California to spend Christmas with her gr Just outside of Maine P ents are in Europe. Her grandmother takes her to church, where the grandmother vol- tended family would come and go, but the summer truly belonged to the girls unteers. The ancient chur and Beth were all cousins around the same age and spent most of their y is warm. As Catherine e those magical seven weeks at Pebble Beach. The four cousins endur After they leave the church, a former chur during their stay. Jamie suffers a broken heart to run away from the church. When Catherine visits Miss Lo picture that looks like Catherine in the entryw Summer Boys Catherine for her missing daughter jealousy, betrayal, envy, and heartache. It demonstrates how relationships during the summer can mined to find out the m be so fleeting and ho pointment. Before you book talk will love this ghost story By summer’s end each girl goes home a little wiser The girls each in their o at heart will absolutely lo ALAN mended for an older r REVIEW

chronicles the classic coming of age tale of teenage r

Hie botRomance Hailey Abbott

w at times even the most sensitiv

eading audience.

wn way experience their fir

ebble Beach became a ritual summer geta

The Presence

xplores the gallery, someone calls her name

stery of the church.

ch, with stained glass windo

this novel. It does however contain adult content and is r

b v utn Mystery by Eve Bunting

. Intrigued by the coincidences

, purchase several copies. Middle school students

ch member, Lottie Lovelace, tells Catherine

st boy, first love, and first time. True romantics

, confident, and mor

e teen can emerge resiliently from disap-

Clip & File

. Later, another member mistak

, feels cold, although the da

andmother, while her par-

e a roller coaster of emotions

omance that involves love,

y for the Tuttle family. Ex-

elace’s home, there is a

e self aware than before.

ISBN: 0-618-26919-3

ear looking forward to

, Catherine is deter-

. Jamie, Ella, Kelsi,

Manhattan, KS

Jessica Segura

uth Prescott

empe, AZ

YA Reviews Book

ecom-

y too little food for the tens of thousands of people living ther soldiers who watch their every move, as well as separation from their only remaining r T The Purple Emperor Clarion Books, 2003, 236 pp., $15.00 Bloomsbury Childr But now, they are finally able to join Mai’ adjustment to life in a for Thirteen-year-old Mai and her gr Brennan’s readers are brought back to the R r cre of her parents, but the Thai refugee camp wher the place as Emper After jumping into Br ing hope, excitement, and confusion for y antly surprised at this piece of y and scientific view of Brennan’s created fairy world. I would recommend reading the first book Their story is preserved on the fabric of pa’ndau, the ancient Hmong art of embr before diving into this one skillfully stitched b what happened in the last no

thread that sustains their memories of the past and Mai’

body from the dead. The Emper son, Comma, to be cr the palace and surr

on a fabulous journe be mature enough to handle issues such as death and gruesome violence

many characters, from Henry, the young earth boy who has fallen in lo an old associate of Hair

elatives.

eligious practices, however, threaten to break the spirit of Gr

vil faerie of the night, Lor

angled Threads: A Hmong Girl’s Story

ears has hardly been a refuge. They have endured the pangs of hunger br

or. (Pyrgus’ father had been mur

ounding kingdom. The no

y where greed seems to be the do

ennan’s series without his fir

en’s Books, 2004, 429 pp., $17.95

y Grandma and lovingly passed on to Mai. It serv

wned the new king and for Pygrus and his sister

streak and faerie of the night. The man

b ebeBennFantasy/Adventure by Herbie Brennan

, because Brennan does not spend a lot of time filling his r

d Hairstreak, returns to cause tr

eign country, its new language, strange culture, food, and

el.

oung adult fiction. The story is fast paced y

or returns to the palace with a document demanding his other

andma were able to escape Laos follo

ealm of the Faerie right before Prince Pygrus is to tak

oung Mai.

b eiDizSe Immigration by Pegi Deitz Shea

el has a nice rhythm of switching betw

st installment entitled

s uncle and his family in America. The

dered at the end of the pr

wnfall of the evil characters. Readers should

ouble by resurrecting the old emper

e they have lived for the past 1

y diverse characters take the reader

s hopes for the futur

andma Yang, while caus-

, Blue, to be banished fr

with Blue, to Brimstone,

aerie Wars

ISBN: 0-618-24748-3

the brutality of the

et still offers a mature

ISBN: 1582348804

es as the common

wing the massa-

vious novel.) The

Manhattan, KS

Nicole Schrecke

Ingrid Seitz,

ought on by

, I was pleas-

eaders in on

empe, AZ

een the

oidery

or’s

0 42 e

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 42 9/3/04, 9:24 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

cle, ALAN

, Net esent REVIEW

xperienced

Jackson, TN

ermillion, SD

Melissa Moore

Lisa A. Hazlett

.g. photography,

ee 10th-graders—

ents of their eras,

, and social cliques

ISBN: 0-8109-4527-4

e year together, includ- together, e year

y the in-crowd; and Zoe, y the in-crowd;

y’ve been best friends since y’ve

, nature, etc.), and are accompanied and are etc.), , nature,

aries.

ee distinct characters and voices (Angela, and voices ee distinct characters

s with eyes*), so dialogue essentially carries s with eyes*),

een the three girls (including emoticons een the three

ee chapters, with each containing information ee chapters,

orks span from the late 18th century to the pr orks span from

e compilation, published in association with the

ould be valuable to art, English, and social studies ould be valuable

), and Zoe (zoegirl). The

elate to both the format and the struggles e

ation for some libr

ou later”) follows the relationships of thr the relationships ou later”) follows

eather the storms of their sophomor

xtensive and current. This interesting, focused compilation is This interesting, and current. xtensive

, who wants so badly to be accepted b , who wants

mad maddie

, more comprehensive narrative. Also featured are a glossary, notes, a glossary, are Also featured narrative. comprehensive , more

ed units of study

s tired of being good). Conflicts happen within and without the cir s tired

by Tonya Bolden Tonya by Historical Nonfiction/Black American Artists

e captions.

ough Instant Messages betw

. Fortunately, Myracle pulls off thr Myracle . Fortunately,

), Maddie (

ealism to abstraction), and subjects (people ealism to abstraction),

SnowAngel

(Instant Messaging for “talk to y

will appeal to teenage girls who can r

by Lauren Myracle Lauren by Friendships/Loyalty

Myracle’s friends. Several expletives and references to sex and anatomy, though appropriate in though appropriate and anatomy, to sex and references expletives Several friends. Myracle’s

ake Up Our Souls

extended, descriptiv extended,

but mutual respect and loyalty win out. and loyalty but mutual respect TTYL by the context, may be a point of consider may the context, seventh grade and are determined to w and are grade seventh the sheltered good girl who’ the sheltered TTYL a too-friendly English teacher license tests, driver’s ing potential boyfriends, W Amulet Books, 2004, 209 pp., $15.95 209 2004, Amulet Books, ISBN: 0-8109-4821-4 American Harry N. Abrams/Smithsonian Their story is told thr Art Museum, 2004, 128 pp., $24.95 Art Museum, 2004, TTYL the action of the story Angela ( who always has a crush; Maddie who always black American artists whose w than 30 More are profiled in this colorful and informativ profiled are Smithsonian Art Museum. The approximately 45 reproduced works reflect a wide range of mediums (e a wide range reflect works 45 reproduced The approximately lingo, and even stage directions like *shoots dagger like stage directions lingo, and even painting), styles (r by The artists’ artworks are distributed among thr are The artists’ artworks about the profiled artists’ lives and works along with the notable historical e and works artists’ lives about the profiled effectively highlighting black Americans’ priceless contributions to the visual arts effectively Although the text is clearly geared toward middle-level students, older readers would also find it would older readers students, middle-level toward is clearly geared Although the text appealing, albeit with a longer bibliography, and reading list, each e and reading bibliography, a significant tribute to black artists and w classes, perhaps inviting shar classes,

the

ay to

, and

YA Book Reviews YA

Fiction

empe, AZ empe,

John Jacob

elipe Baez

Oak Park, IL Oak Park,

ehicles are put ehicles are

,” and some of

om—Alexandra

al child” throws a al child” throws

d has been shot.

ISBN: 0-8109-5031-6

andra’s experience in be- experience andra’s

eird” girl, Belinda, whose eird”

el town dogs helping sa el town

ung Fu meets Lassie. It is worth meets Lassie. ung Fu

the book has “bites

e in the basement with other ani-

eally enjoy this tale, with its old man this tale, eally enjoy

ustralian; any older reader may notice may older reader any ustralian;

Clip & File

ench).

w how the dogs and the v w how

and a tractor, among many. and a tractor,

al things. Xandra becomes hesitant in Xandra al things.

eaders of a world peopled by amalgams be- peopled by of a world eaders

d is missing leaving a feather, which later a feather, d is missing leaving

ove

oad Warrior.” In the film, a “fer oad Warrior.”

d it may be, Xandra takes it to her home to takes Xandra be, d it may

, and experiencing a life she isn’t used to— , and experiencing

by Graeme Base Graeme by Adventure/Dogs//Science

orld.

orld, as well. Though Snyder writes few scenes in writes few Though Snyder orld, as well.

etly done so befor

ested in art, might r

o become friends and learn much about each other

e; otherwise, this is a Mad Max/K e; otherwise,

. It is the hero’s story about mongr . It is the hero’s

om the film, “The R

wledge of such supernatur

ent into this book for middle r

vel in Four Bites

oung hero, and color plates that sho oung hero,

, closer to her siblings

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Zilpha Keatley by Fantasy

learn more about this “key,” Xandra must talk to the “w Xandra about this “key,” learn more

lot of ingenuity w

andra experiences the “unseen” w experiences andra

ruck Dogs: A No

Amulet Books, 2004, 145 pp., $16.95 2004, Amulet Books, tween machinery and animals tween A

town from another town’s “bad dogs.” The writer is A “bad dogs.” another town’s from town almost exact duplications fr almost exact boomerang; here, our dog hero throws a “spanner” (wr throws our dog hero here, boomerang; Middle readers, especially those inter Middle readers,

with wisdom, its y together. The idea itself is quite original. Instead of chapter together.

The story takes place in the futur The story takes a glance or two, and the cover is great. and the cover a glance or two,

the dogs are a Jack Russell, Great Dane, Irish Setter, and a Mastiff, all joined in some w Irish Setter, Dane, Great a Jack Russell, the dogs are bulldozers, ore trucks, a Ford 50 pickup, a Land R 50 a Ford trucks, ore bulldozers,

The Unseen Delacorte Press, 2004, 199 pps.$15.95 2004, Delacorte Press, ISBN: 0-385-73084-5 One day while wondering through the forest—which she is forbidden fr the forest—which through while wondering One day “Xandra” Hobson hears gunfire, soon noticing a beautiful white bir gunfire, Hobson hears “Xandra” Before the hunters can grab it, Xandra takes the bird and runs through the forest. and runs through the bird takes it, Xandra can grab the hunters Before Though she has no idea what kind of bir nurse it to health, as she has secr nurse mals. The next day, however, she finds the bir however, day, The next mals. becomes a “key” to the “unseen” w becomes a “key” To grandfather has kno grandfather talking to Belinda, but the tw X which Xandra experiences the “unseen,” the story follo experiences which Xandra coming humbler Belinda’s life and the “unseen.” Belinda’s 43

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 43 9/3/04, 9:24 AM T ◆ H ◆ E

playing with his band, or caring for his hospitalized mother however; Lee’s father is adamant about him sta Naturally, there are stories about the v “Tangled Notes in a W The Young Man and the Sea and her late grandmother to see color r What a Song Can Do: 12 Riffs on the Po Blue Sky Press (imprint of Scholastic), 2 mourning and also a crush, is serv In Ann Manheimer’ by Tw ISBN: 0-375-84299-5 As with any collection, some entries ar Knopf , 2004, 208 pp., $15.95 vive after his mother’ “Theme” is a term used in liter stories, she conflates the tw

by being said, the biggest success in this book is the deliber ately tries to get his father to get back into the family fishing business in the compilation. of his situation by putting out baits for the tuna. He is r Skiff raises the Mary Rose after it sunk with the help of a kindly old man, Mr r Amos Woodwell instructs Skiff as ho should have been. the necessary repairs but does not ha decides to earn mone One day he sees an amateur fisherman who caught a lar decision to solve his financial pr sea, he runs into thick fog and r

efreshing to find these stories did not all portr

ealizes his foolish mistak

Jennifer Armstr

elve-year-old Samuel “Skiff” Beaman Jr ALAN instances of bland narr REVIEW

s “Riffs,” she tells the story of a bo

ong

atermelon,” Cor

y trapping lobsters for the repairs on Mary Rose.

s recent death. Skiff is for

ative voices, trite dialogue, and underhanded pr

o and successfully sho

es of not taking enough bait and not being as pr

ature and music; but in Jennifer Armstr

b omnPibikFishing/Survival by Rodman Philbrick

ed on a table made of surr

ealizes he has for

oblems by going after tuna. T

a is afflicted with

e simply less palpable than other

ery real, binding quality of music

s and objects while the

w to raise the boat and once done

004, 192 pp., $16.95

the money to repair the diesel motor

ying home.

. is a determined y

music as the gr

wer of Music

y named Lee who is torn b

ced to become an adult as he desper-

gotten a fog horn. He mak

the universalities of music. It was most

synesthesia

Clip & File

ate circumspection that Armstr

ealism.

. The ‘riff’ is not entir

eat healer of all the w

y hear music. This story, about

eady to head home after his

ge tuna. Samuel mak

, a condition that causes Cor

oung man trying to sur-

ong’s compilation of short

enty-five miles out to

. In Dian Curtis R

Some are a bit flattened

ISBN: 0-439-36829-4

eachiness. With that

, proceeds to do

Edward A. Wade

y the dilemma of

Jo Ann Yazzie

epared as he

. Woodwell.

ely internal,

orld’s pains.

es the best

empe, AZ

ong took

. Skiff

es the

Music

egan’s

YA Reviews Book

lro ok,20,11p. 1.0ISBN: 0-618-23475-6 Clarion Books, 2003, 191 pp., $18.00

Wor

treatment of 19th century w ov dents.” W

and make it much more appealing to adolescent r ous inclusion of historical photogr W R traveling the major w and memoirs of young people making the journe Ideally suited for inter history or the American W

eaders come away with a clear sense of the beauty

adsworth covers the full range of experience associated with this aspect of American history

erland pioneers, devoting chapters to issues like “chores and chow” and “life, death, and acci-

ords West: Voices of Young Pioneers

Publishers who wish to submit a book for possible r of the book to:

To contact Lori Goodson at [email protected]

ds West

en through her discussion of each topic is a colorful set of e

submit a review for possible publication or to become a r

is a significant achie

Lori Goodson 409 Chery Circle Manhattan, KS 66503

estward trails.

disciplinary studies

est.

estward migration according to the concerns and har

ement in non-fiction for y

aphs.

Wor

ds West

eaders. Also, the book benefits fr

These quotations br

Gne asot Non-fiction/Pioneer Ginger Wadsworth

, tragedy, fear, and work endured by those

should appeal to students inter

oung adults. Wadsworth organizes her

cerpts from the diaries, letters,

eview, send a copy

eathe life into the narr

eviewer,

dships faced by

Todd Goodson

Manhattan, KS

om the gener-

ested in

ative

Life

44 .

h37-44_TAR_Summer04 44 9/3/04, 9:24 AM KaaVonia Hinton-Johnson

African American Mothers & Daughters: Socialization, Distance, & Conflict

he black women’s literary tradition began in a conscious effort to create a space for black Synopses of Novels T women’s writing and to illustrate a distinction between black women’s reality and the realities of Johnson, Angela. Toning the Sweep. New York: others (Christian 348–359). The literature within the Scholastic, 1994. tradition is influenced by how black women perceive Emily, the protagonist, and her mother visit themselves and the world around them. As a result, Emily’s grandmother, Ola, in the California identity is an important part of African-American desert. They are preparing to take Ola home to women’s literature (Hooper 74–81). Race, class, Ohio with them because she is dying of cancer. gender, and sexuality are all components of one’s Emily learns a great deal about her grandmother, identity and are critical in the formation of one’s lived her grandfather, her mother, and herself while experiences (Crenshaw 357–383). Family, from its videotaping her grandmother’s friends. structure to the function of specific members within Johnson, Angela. Heaven. New York: Aladdin the unit, also has a significant influence on one’s Paperbacks, 1998. identity development. Relationships with family Marley discovers her biological father’s twin members help young people develop a sense of self- brother and his wife adopted her when she was awareness, pride, and individuality. One of the most much younger. She struggles with notions of significant familial relationships in black women’s family and identity, as she attempts to learn literature is the one that exists between mothers and about a mother she does not remember. daughters. Collins argues for the importance of including the Williams-Garcia, Rita. Blue Tights. New York: lived experiences of black women when thinking Puffin, 1988. critically about motherhood (45–65). Black feminist Joyce Collins, an aspiring dancer, wants to theory offers a useful framework for thinking deeply feel love and a sense of belonging. At school she about the black mother-daughter relationship. The doesn’t fit in with her middle-class schoolmates, theory calls for a careful look at how race, class, and and she believes her ballet teacher is discriminat- gender, as interlocking oppressions, inextricably ing against her. At home she struggles to cope impact the mother-daughter relationship. Here, I use with her fragile relationship with her mother. black feminist theory as a tool to look at the mother- Williams-Garcia, Rita. Like Sisters on the daughter relationships in Angela Johnson’s Toning the Homefront. New York: Lodestar, 1995. Sweep and Heaven, Rita Williams-Garcia’s Blue Tights When Gayle becomes pregnant with her and Like Sisters on the Homefront, and Jacqueline second child, her mother forces her to do two Woodson’s The Dear One and I Hadn’t Meant to Tell

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

i45-49_TAR_Summer04 45 9/3/04, 9:13 AM facial expression, “Don’t ever feel like you don’t have things that change the direction of her life: 1) power [ . . .]” (Woodson, 31). Catherine’s response Gayle has an abortion and 2) she goes to expresses the contradictory teachings of black moth- Georgia to live with relatives. In Georgia, she ers. Though Catherine wants to prepare Afeni to live learns the rich history of her family and im- in a world that does not value her, she also wants to proves her self-value. empower her. Afeni’s mother also strives to teach her about Woodson, Jacqueline. The Dear One. New York: African American pride amongst middle-class black Bantam Doubleday, 1991. professionals. Her mother is the vice president of a Afeni becomes unhappy when Catherine, public relations firm, and her mother’s friends, Marion her mother, decides to take in Rebecca, a college and Bernadette, are an attorney and teacher, respec- friend’s pregnant daughter. In time, however, the tively. Catherine wants Afeni to see that black profes- two girls put aside their differences in an effort sionals are important and valuable to the black to forge a promising friendship. community. She also suggests Afeni learn the signifi- Woodson, Jacqueline . I Hadn’t Meant to Tell cance of middle-class black people working together You This. New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1994. to help blacks who are less fortunate. Catherine makes Thirteen-year-old Marie recalls her friend- this evident to Afeni when she joins with Marion to ship with Lena, and how they bonded as a result help a college friend’s pregnant daughter. of being motherless. In a similar vein, Diane (I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This) teaches Marie to respect all people regardless of socioeconomic levels. Though her father repeatedly refers to poor whites as trash, her mother You This (See Sidebar for Summary). Each of these insists that they be referred to as people. For Diane, it novels offers rich, poignant depictions of black is important that Marie learns that “[w]e [are] all just mother-daughter bonds. Three themes that merit people here” (Woodson, 59) and that she should discussion shape the mother-daughter connections in acknowledge that poor people, regardless of race, are 1 these six award-winning novels: socialization , disenfranchised, which is one of the hallmarks of distance, and conflict. black feminism (King, 294–317). In Joseph’s 1991 study, she expresses a particular Socialization interest in how adolescent mothers socialize their Societal messages that devalue and debase people daughters: of color and the poor influence the identity formation As the children of the adolescent mothers grow older, what of black girls. As a result, Wade-Gayles asserts that messages can the mothers give their daughters about mar- black mothers “socialize their daughters to be inde- riage; about men; about getting ahead in the world and pendent, strong and self-confident” (12). This can be getting an education? These are the major lessons that traditional Black mothers give to their daughters, and they are difficult because, while black mothers want to teach important ones (101). their daughters these concepts, they must also prepare their daughters to live in a society that devalues them. Because of bitter and hostile experiences with This is seen clearly in an exchange in between men, Aunt Em and Minnie (Blue Tights) attempt to Catherine and Afeni (The Dear One). Afeni says, advise, and, in some cases, warn, Joyce about men “There’s always going to be someone deciding what I (Bethel 176–188). At sixteen, Aunt Em had become can and can’t do. If it’s not because I’m a kid, it’ll be pregnant and had given herself a coat hanger abortion because I’m a woman. If it’s not because I’m a when she realized that the baby’s father had deserted woman, it’ll be because I’m black” (Woodson, 31). her. Also a deserted teen mother, Minnie had Joyce Catherine replies, with “something like fear” in her just turning sixteen; as a result, Minnie becomes frightened that “history will repeat itself” when she 1. I realize socialization is an overlapping theme, as distance learns J’had is interested in Joyce. Socialization and conflict impact socialization. becomes an important part of the mother-daughter

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

i45-49_TAR_Summer04 46 9/3/04, 9:13 AM relationship, as mothers hope to isolate their daugh- Similarly, Afeni’s mother works “sixty to seventy ters “. . . from the dangers of the larger world until hours a week” (86). Initially, Afeni does not realize they are old enough and strong enough to function as how problematic this is because she considers herself autonomous women” (Troester, 163). Yet, for some to be a “true-blue loner” (86). Afeni thinks, “I liked mothers, adequate time for socializing daughters is being by myself and thinking thoughts no one else often hard-won, if won at all. knew about, not even Mama” (86). This assessment changes later, however, when Afeni sees her relationship with her mother through Rebecca’s eyes and Distance accuses Catherine of putting her own daughter In spite of attempts at mother-daughter closeness second: “You want a career and stuff. You don’t have in some of these novels, some mothers are still distant. time for a daughter,” (83). It is important to note, The distance between mothers and daughters can be however, that Afeni feels comfortable having such a labeled as physical and/or emotional distance. difficult conversation with her mother, which suggests Physical distance refers to the actual physical separa- that the two share a certain amount of closeness tion of mothers from their daughters for various despite some physical and emotional distance. reasons, most of which include some type of work. Conversely, Gayle (Like Sisters on the Homefront) Emotional distance involves the mothers’ inability or does not enjoy the comfort of communicating with her unwillingness to express affection toward their mother. In fact, it is clear that Gayle does not know daughters. Both types of distance are detrimental to her mother well long before Auntie says, “I get the the mother-daughter relationship and make it difficult feeling you don’t know your mother” (117). Gayle’s for mothers to help their daughters negotiate identity mother, Ruth Bell, is the sole provider for her family; formation. as a result, she spends a significant amount of her Wade-Gayles suggests that black women have an time working outside the home. This is problematic approach to mothering that is influenced by their for Gayle as it makes it easier for her to participate in socioeconomic standing in society (8–12). For this adult practices such as sexual intercourse. Because reason, a number of the mothers in the novels dis- Ruth Bell cannot be home to supervise her daughter, cussed here work full-time jobs, creating distance, she is unaware that Gayle’s affair with a married man whether physical or emotional, between themselves is initiated in her home and ends with Gayle’s first and their daughters. The girls repeatedly refer to the pregnancy. amount of work their mothers do or to their mothers’ When Gayle goes into labor, she is refused physical distance because of work. Several times anesthesia because she has no advocate to protest on throughout Blue Tights, Joyce and Minnie’s relation- her behalf since, as Gayle explains to Cookie, “Mama ship is described as being similar to a relationship couldn’t take off from work early and I didn’t have no between sisters, partly because of their closeness in doctor [. . .]” (45). When Ruth Bell does request a day ages, but there are also times when Minnie distances off, not only is she penalized via lost wages, but her herself from Joyce because she chooses to focus on dignity is compromised, also. Gayle listens as Ruth her career. As a teenager, Minnie leaves Joyce with Bell uses her “best ‘work voice’” while talking to her Aunt Em while she dances professionally. By the time employer and surmises, “now Mama was angry be- Minnie decides to stop dancing, Minnie tells Joyce she cause she had to sound like a child begging permission is “too big for all of that ‘come-to-Mommy’ nonsense” to take care of business” (2). (Williams-Garcia, 102). Later, Minnie’s decision to Ruth Bell’s inability to be physically close to Gayle pursue a degree in nursing and marry a man with weighs heavily on how Gayle feels emotionally about several children takes her further away from Joyce. her mother. When Aunt Virginia tells Gayle about her Working a part-time job and attending school, the mother’s past, particularly her relationship with her mother-daughter gap widens and physical distance father, Williams-Garcia writes, “[Gayle] didn’t want to continues to be a problem even after Minnie becomes understand Mama, because understanding would a nurse. loosen the grip on her heart” (120). Ruth Bell seems to

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

i45-49_TAR_Summer04 47 9/3/04, 9:13 AM be partly responsible for Gayle’s tough exterior. After daughters in the novels analyzed here express differ- Ruth Bell forces Gayle to get an abortion, “[She] ences in opinion via verbal disagreements, and in at wouldn’t give Gayle room to vent her feelings about least one mother-daughter duo, physical altercations. her ordeal [ . . .]” (9) Refusing to allow anything to For example, tension exists between Gayle and Ruth make her cry, not even the pain from the abortion, Bell for several reasons (Like Sisters on the Gayle tells Cookie, “Me cry so Mama could start Homefront). Early in the novel, Gayle admits that Ruth hollering ‘What you crying for?’ Please” (45). Bell “be pissing her off” partly because of Ruth Bell’s Collins asserts, “For far too many Black mothers, treatment of her and also because she believes her the demands of providing for children are so demand- brother is her mother’s “favorite” because he looks ing that affection often must wait until the basic needs like his father. of physical survival are satisfied” (55). Similarly, King However, a large part of the antagonism between maintains, “[W]hen black women become the primary Gayle and her mother is the result of Ruth Bell’s or sole earners for households, researchers and public discovery of Gayle’s second pregnancy. Immediately, analysts interpret this self-sufficiency as pathology, as Ruth Bell exerts control over Gayle, insisting that she deviance, as a threat to black family life” (298). Black get an abortion and move “down Souf” with extended women view their labor quite differently, however. For family. On the way to the clinic, Ruth Bell argues, “As them, work outside the home is an expression of love long as you fourteen and in my house, you mines for their families, particularly their children, not [. . .] . Only one woman in my house. I say what goes negligence. on in my four walls [. . .]” [italics in original] (4). When Joyce feels rejected by J’had, Minnie Mother and daughter seem to be in a tug-of-war even cannot understand why Joyce would jeopardize her when it appears that Ruth Bell is in control. In her future in exchange for physical intimacy with a man. final effort to prove Ruth Bell wrong, Gayle verbally Nevertheless, Joyce explains her motive as a desire to attempts to exercise her right to keep the baby, be loved. Upon hearing this, Minnie becomes even maintaining, “That ‘doption sounds good” even as she more perplexed, as she insists that she gives Joyce realizes “it was hype. Ain’t nobody breaking they love: “Don’t I feed you? Put a roof over your head? necks to adopt black babies” (6). Gayle, fully aware Scrimp and put up with trash on the job so you can go that she must submit to Ruth Bell’s wishes, gets the to any college you want? That’s all for you” (Williams- abortion, though she is forced to request local anes- Garcia, 113). thesia because “[t]hey didn’t have extra money for Afeni is also unaware that she and her mother sleep” (7). Powerless, Gayle also goes on the life- interpret love and affection differently. Several times changing trip to Georgia to live with her uncle and his throughout The Dear One, Afeni feels her mother does family. not care about her, yet she never considers that her Fear fuels the conflict between Joyce and Minnie. mother expresses her love via opportunities she makes One of the first causes of Minnie’s fear occurs when available to Afeni. Catherine tells her, “Don’t you ever Joyce tells Minnie that her stepfather is looking at her let me hear you say I don’t love you, because if I’m inappropriately. Minnie’s first reaction is to slap Joyce. not showing it with words, I’m showing it with However, when Minnie observes that her husband’s actions! ‘I love you’ is in every meal you eat, every “eyes are follow[ing] the twelve-year-old girl in and piece of clothing you wear, and every clean sheet you out of the living room,” she leaves him (Williams- sleep on!” (84). This distance, emotional and physical, Garcia, Blue Tights, 21). The tension and fear further often confuses the girls and presents a challenge to increases when Joyce, feeling neglected by her aunt mothers who attempt to socialize them and help shape and her mother, begins to reach out to J’had. Angry their identities. and confused because she does not know how to prevent Joyce from repeating her mistakes, Minnie Conflict tells Joyce she does not love her. Joyce believes this, and continues to look for love elsewhere until she Emotional and physical distance between mothers realizes it is actually inside her. and daughters often lead to conflict. Mothers and

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

i45-49_TAR_Summer04 48 9/3/04, 9:14 AM Conclusion Collins, Patricia Hill. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood.” Mothering: Ideology, Contemporary novels such as the ones discussed Experience, and Agency. Eds. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace here continue to shine light on the complex role of Chang, Linda Rennie Forcey. New York: Routledge, 1994. 45- motherhood. Analyzing the mothering role, in general, 65. Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. “Mapping the Margins: and the mother-daughter relationship in particular, Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women provides insight into how race and class largely impact of Color.” Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed mothering. Black feminist theory is especially useful the Movement. Eds. Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary for considering some of the nuances of mother- Peller, and Kendall Thomas. New York: The New Press, 1995. daughter relationships influenced by race, class and 357-383. gender. As these novels indicate, black mothers, even Hooper, Lita. “A Black Feminist Critique of The Bride Price and The Bluest Eye.” Journal of African Children’s & Youth in the midst of conflict, and in spite of physical and Literature 6 (1994/1995): 74-81. emotional distance, are determined to socialize their Joseph, Gloria I. “Black Mothers and Daughters: Traditional and daughters, impacting their overall development into New Perspectives.” Double Stitch: Black Women Write About womanhood. Mothers & Daughters. Eds. Patricia Bell-Scott, Beverly Guy- Sheftall, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Janet Sims-Wood, Miriam Decosta-Willis & Lucille Fultz. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. KaaVonia Hinton-Johnson is Assistant Professor in the 94-106. Department of Educational Curriculum & Instruction at King, Deborah K. “Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology.” Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. Ed. Beverly Works Cited Guy-Sheftall. New York: The New Press, 1995. 294-317. Bethel, Lorraine. “‘This Infinity of Conscious Pain:’ Zora Neale Leadbeater, Bonnie J. Ross. & Way, N. eds. Urban Girls: Resisting Hurston and the Black Female Literary Tradition.” All the Stereotypes, Creating Identities. New York: New York Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us University Press, 1996. are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. Eds. Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Troester, Rosalie Riegle. “Turbulence and Tenderness: Mothers, Bell. Scott, & Barbara Smith. New York: The Feminist Press, Daughters, and ‘Othermothers’ in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, 1982. 176-188. Brownstones.” Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Christian, Barbara. “The Race for Theory.” Within the Circle: An Mothers & Daughters. Eds. Patricia Bell-Scott, Beverly Guy- Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Sheftall, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Janet Sims-Wood, Miriam Harlem Renaissance to the Present. Ed. Angelyn Mitchell. Decosta-Willis & Lucille Fultz. Boston: Beacon Press, Durham: Duke University Press, 1994. 348-359. 1991.163-172. Collins, Patricia Hill. “The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Wade-Gayles, Gloria. “The Truths of Our Mothers’ Lives: Mother- Culture and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships.” Double Daughter Relationships in Black Womens’ Fiction.” Sage: A Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers & Daughters. Eds. Scholarly Journal on Black Women 1.2 (1984): 8-12. Patricia Bell-Scott, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Janet Sims-Wood, Miriam Decosta-Willis & Lucille Fultz. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. 42-60.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

i45-49_TAR_Summer04 49 9/3/04, 9:14 AM Elaine J. O’Quinn

Vampires, Changelings, and Radical Mutant Teens: What the Demons, Freaks, and Other Abominations of Young Adult Literature Can Teach Us About Youth

“Conversations between members of different species are difficult at best.” —from Owl in Love (191)

finally understand that before introducing young means to be a “better” person. They do not, however, adult students to new realizations of who they look for these understandings in didactic or necessar- I might be, it is important to help them understand ily “reasoned” ways. In fact, it might even be argued the roles in which they have been cast by culture and that, because they are in the midst of an evolving society—in other words, who others expect them to intellectual and emotional impression of the world, be. Through a blend of modern psychological science, adolescents choose not to draw absolute lines between the Enlightenment ideal of rationality that threads the conflicts that plague them and the conflicts that throughout the history of modern education, and the torment the characters they read about even if those traditional Protestant notion of humans as fundamen- conflicts are not necessarily their own and the charac- tally flawed and fallen, the haunting specter of ters exist in another realm. adolescents as problematic, emotionally unstable, and It is no accident that a novel like Weetzie Bat innately sinful has permeated societal judgments of continues to be immensely popular. The world teens who they are. Pathologized as deviant, ascribed with are experiencing is a curious place where strange and endless maladies that capitalize on societal anxieties unexpected events happen; no reality is privileged and intolerances, and diagnosed as irrational, depen- because, clearly, no reality can be claimed as fixed and dent, and non-conforming, young adults are viewed as stable. Struggles with what is “good” exact the same dangerous and unpredictable aberrations that must be price as battles with the “devil.” Because youth are cured of their reckless natures. In a word, they are not afraid to ask the same hard questions about transgressors, who blatantly resist their assignment to goodness as they do evil, “good” is feared as much as “normal” cultural boxes. Such judgments of the young it is loved. For them, the complacent answers that are often imported onto their reading habits as well as often come with age rarely exist; moral certainty their personal characters. appears just as evil as outright wickedness. Frailties of Young people, just like adults, read for many the heart and spirit are no more and no less limiting different reasons. They seek to know themselves than those of the mind and body. It is only in theory, better, know their world better, and know what it not practice, that young people are incapable of

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 50 9/3/04, 9:22 AM adequately reflecting on the atrocities as well as the status quo who is most feared, not the pen and ink marvels of their lives. Books with elements of the ghosts of some writer’s imagination. It is this recogniz- “unreal” which draw only fine lines between reality able, mortal being who flies in the face of custom, and fiction help in their reflection of these understand- counsel, and the commonplace, who spits in the eye ings as much as any other text they encounter. of adult claims of a predetermined sequence for Adults who believe that adolescence is a time adolescent development that must be stifled. The when the lens focused on the world must be adjusted alienation is palpable; the construction complex. If to view life through the eyes of grown-up “truths” adult notions of adolescence cannot be mapped onto rather than childhood “fictions” find it difficult to take young adults, then we must deal with teens on their seriously teenage books that concern themselves with own terms, a perspective that seems impossible and fantastical protagonists who are half woman, half forbidding to some and downright immoral and animal; part man, part angel; or a pinch of human, unacceptable to others. and a dose of demon. Once readers move beyond age- The history of literary monsters, vampires, and appropriate fairy tales, they are expected to give up changelings is a long and lively one. Such characters their child-like fears and fascinations with the strange, make an appearance in both ancient and modern eerie, and unknown while disciplining themselves to cultures. From Beowulf to Frankenstein to Dracula to “rationally recognizing the dangers of these disrupting The Metamorphosis right up to the most recent forces that intrude on their humanity. The inclination comeback of the comic book legend Spiderman, is to dismiss stories of the supernatural, surreal, or society has maintained a steady, if strange, attraction fancy as either immature daydreams of immortality, to the grotesque, unusual, and sometimes macabre poorly contrived romances of horror, fluff of the manipulation of humanhood. Traditional fairy tales imagination or, even worse, as solipsistic, self- abound with stories of non-human entities being referential texts. Unfortunately, in the haste to dismiss substituted for mortal babies at birth by malevolent “unrealistic” genres of books, we miss important forces. Our fascination with creatures who are so understandings of adolescent thinking and identity different from who we perceive ourselves to be is construction while remaining blind to the flawed, debated in depth by everyone from literary scholars to linear nature of the developmental theories surround- philosophers, and the longing to understand every- ing them. Instead of allowing readers to use such texts thing from sexual prowess to immortality to bourgeois as touchstones for the sometimes tragic nature of their politics is attributed to the creation of such freaks. lives, or even as sites of inevitable loss that may never But perhaps the most important issue that a be reconciled, we condescendingly refer to them as character like the werewolf, or, as is the case with “dumbed downed” versions of “real” literature, Klause’s Blood and Chocolate, a shewolf, forces us to worthless pieces of deviant trash, or sentimental confront is the one which nudges acknowledgement of fiction that is “utterly banal” (Ravitch 130). the blurred lines of identity that haunt us our entire In a need to reinforce rather than shatter myths of lives. It is not the Jekyll and Hyde ability to disguise youth, adults frequently fail to see books such as M.T. our true nature that piques human interest nearly so Anderson’s Thirsty or Patricia Kindl’s Owl in Love as much as it is an ability to learn to live in multiple symbolic resistances of the socio-cultural harnesses worlds and multiple identities with an on-going systematically thrown across the neck of adolescence. consciousness of what that might mean. For young To be sure, the fictitious vampires and changelings of people, especially, such concerns are at the forefront these books, standing far outside the acceptable norm, of their daily experience. They do not seek to give up can be safely reasoned away as bizarre and unusual who they are, but rather to integrate their known “characters,” mere entertainment at best or identifica- sense of a developing self with the unknown self that tion badge of the outcast at least; however, what pushes from the darkness. They are not looking for cannot be denied is the flesh and blood radical mutant the certainty that the prudence of adulthood points teen counterpart seen in the reader’s mirror. It is this them toward; they are searching for a way of negotiat- corporeal monster, the teen who purposefully pushes ing the inconsistencies that living in an infinitely against notions of standardization, normativity, and complex universe imposes. Half-vampires and change-

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 51 9/3/04, 9:22 AM lings, shewolves and snake-boys provide an opportu- recognize the enigmatic necessity of their chameleon- nity to move through these incongruities in a way that like realities. Adapting constantly to an evolving realistic fiction cannot. environment, prone to change without a moment’s The radical mutant teen as seen in contemporary notice, and sensitive to whatever predicaments they young adult literature is about transfiguration not happen to stumble into, the young people of these mere transformation; liberation not redemption. These texts all realize the fragility of identity and the diffi- are the teens who are unpredictable and multifaceted, culty involved in trying to hold on to it, even as they who are a tangle of contradictions and paradoxes. seek to question it. They refuse the defining theories of youth that would Dizzied by the obscure world whizzing round wed them to lock-step states and conditions depen- them, the radical mutant teens of these texts wrestle dent on categories and bracketing, theories that are with the startling disparities of light and dark forces, certain of particular phases and cycles. They deny the good and bad inclinations, and autonomous and “Truths” that Foucault observes are “linked in a dependent feelings. These binaries confuse them circular relation with systems of power which produce because the implied hierarchies of such limiting and sustain” (133); like Foucault, they intend to choices do not ring true. They note the contradictions expose those truths as biased claims set in motion by of living that consistently bring together all of the those who stand to gain the most from them. These strengths and weaknesses of existence at once. For are the outlaws who refuse to look for the answers in these characters, reality includes moral struggles, the socially habituated places—teens for whom piety limitless being, and the experience of painful circum- is found in leaving the questions open rather than in stances. They come to know that sometimes the only accepting the culturally prescribed explanations. They way to understand the ecstasy of humanity is to are not about becoming someone else’s notion of who experience the anguish of it, anguish that frequently they should be; they are about accepting the unique- happens at their own hand. “I realize,” says Chris in ness of their own promise and limits. Thirsty, “that the decision to be human is not one In stories, these evolving, uncommon identities single instant, but is a thousand choices made every answer to names like Chris, Owl, Simon, Linnet, day. It is choices we make every second and requires Darren, and Althea. In stories, these identities on the constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human” margin lead to the obscure dwelling places of vam- (Anderson 248). pires, werewolves, cutwings, and shapeshifters. The radical mutant teen is a category buster. It is Stepping out of the cradle of childhood and into the the dreaded octopus appendage of young people that wide berth of adulthood where questions of life and adults anxiously scramble to restrain, only to discover death loom large, these are the characters who in our it popping out from yet another site. Radical mutant own world are known simply as teens, enthusiastic teens do not always march to the drumbeat of ratio- anomalies whose only desires are to know and be nality that the linear theories of adolescence would known. Much like the characters they choose to read have them heed. Where they will travel and to what about, teens are intent on creating themselves not as they will attend cannot always be foretold. In an effort predetermined immutable essences over which they to release their unique potentiality, these teens often have no say, but as active interpreters of their own defy convention, even at the risk of being misunder- lives whose ambiguous natures can sometimes stood and seen as developmentally inappropriate, off overcome situations meant to fix them in place. track, or just plain weird. Caught up in the pursuit of self, community, and Yet, I contend it is not the teens themselves who humanity; trying to balance a newfound physicalness are wayward, but rather the system that attempts to with emotional awareness, intellectual consciousness, contain them. Because of a growing desire to pigeon- and moral perception; and attempting to negotiate a hole personality development as character education world strung somewhere between farce and tragedy, and dictate preferred behavior according to defined the teen characters in books like Thirsty, Owl in Love, standards, the fixed and parochial stages of “normal” The Silver Kiss, The Cheerleader, Cirque du Freak, and development continually erode the space teens need to Growing Wings all have one thing in common: They discover who they might become. In an effort to make

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 52 9/3/04, 9:22 AM the world small, adult theories about adolescents have undertaking (40). “Why walk?” she asks, “with the disregarded youth’s right to self-determination and whole world watching, she was going to fly” (195). have failed to validate the indeterminable awakenings Linnet resolves to be courageous about her transfigur- of self-definition. “One thing [is] for sure,” Linnet of ing self, but she will never be compliant. She is Growing Wings thinks to herself, “she [is] not going to prepared to mobilize her autonomous nature and will let anyone bind her wings or cut them off” (Winter 3). not give way to the fears and prejudices that the world In The Silver Kiss, Simon echoes a similar feeling: assumes will subdue her. “Call me nobody? he whisper[s], and his fangs slid[e] The breast and crown of the Linnet, a well-known from their sheaths. Call me nobody? he scream[s] as if songbird, become a brilliant crimson in the summer, in pain. . . . I AM” (Krause 40). but only if it is left in the wild and not tamed. And, Teen readers are drawn to figures such as the indeed, Laurel Winter’s story of Linnet is that of a winged changelings Linnet and Owl and the under- fledgling young girl, determined to fly. She will not standable vampires Chris and Simon, not only because allow her wings to be bound and, therefore, will not they are resolute in their desire to be themselves, but be symbolically caged. For her, wings represent a because they stand as representative of the “lust for divine freedom. She is determined she will never be a life” and the yearning for freedom that youth also feel. “cutwing,” a sign that she accepts her own mortality “How brave was his mind and spirit; what a longing as a part of her existence that cannot be controlled. for life, for life, for his own true nature, he had” is Though Linnet must, in the end, escape, at least how Owl of Owl in Love describes the desires of the temporarily, to the safety of a group of other creatures fellow wereowl she works to save (Kindl 189). like herself, she does not do so because she seeks Likewise, Chris, the vampire teen in Thirsty, cannot isolation but because there are those who would ignore his own “unnamed feelings that percolate until persecute her and her kind for that which they cannot they feel like a dam about to burst” (Anderson 26). “I help being. Linnet does this willingly and becomes am thirsty,” he says, “[t]hirsty for life,” and in the stronger for it, but recognizes, too, that someday she course of events that follow, Chris comes to define and others like her will be a visible force in the world. more clearly what that actually means (249). But this Owl, the protagonist of Patricia Kindl’s story, lust can also be a curse; uninvited but ever present, it would seem to have little in common with Winter’s is a hunger that cannot be ignored, it torments the Linnet. Physically and metaphorically these two characters of these novels as much as it compels changelings are very different. Owl’s unusual appear- them. They learn that controlling it can sometimes be ance does not torture her in the same way that a difficult, if not impossible burden. Linnet’s does. In fact, she often “long[s] to transform” “Beneath the itch [of the wing] is an ache,” to her physical owl self (181). Though she attempts to reveals Linnet (Winter 2); an ache, we can assume, “fit in” by doing things like trying to eat her mice that is both titillating and frightening at once. Forcing between two slices of bread, she is more concerned her into physical and emotional discomfort, the with how awful the bread is than with the fact she “[w]ings. Forming beneath the surface of her skin. prefers to eat mice. She continually “long[s] for [her] Unfolding. Emerging” morph Linnet beyond her will own humanity” (170). Still, even Owl has moments and cause her much distress (11). There appears no when she realizes that “[s]ometimes [she] would like room for the wings to stretch and grow. She has no not to be what [she] is” (6). But while “[l]ife is a choice but to accept the changes taking place, yet strange and sometimes terrible thing” for Owl, it is insists on doing so under her own conditions. Dealing also a thing of possibility (4). It is an experience to be with a body that seems to have betrayed her, Linnet welcomed, not avoided or ignored. knows she will be altered by the changes, knows her Owl stands in her story very much as a symbol of new appearance makes her a freak, but refuses to the unclouded vision that sometimes only youth can conform to the implied imposition of those changes. have. Traditionally associated with Athene, goddess of Though she realizes that to “try flying with wings in wisdom, an owl, with its sharp eyes, is able to the real world” is an almost impossible feat, she penetrate the darkness in ways that others cannot. understands, too, that she is determined to soar in the Kindl’s Owl wisely observes many things that the

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 53 9/3/04, 9:22 AM adults around her are unable to detect. She is a bridge The Silver Kiss, the vampire Simon is able to help Zoe between the mortal, grown-up world of day, whose cope with the impending loss of her mother by harsh and brilliant light can blind people to each helping her recognize she is paralyzed from living her other, and the nocturnal, transitional world of night, own life in the denial of her mother’s death. “It’s where the softness of light allows for more hallowed death,” he tells her, “[d]eath that frightens you so” understandings of the nature of things. Owl, who can (56). As Zoe searches for “some magic [to] perform to transform only at night, is a kindred spirit of the stop her mother dying” (74), Simon helps them both moon, which stands for change and growth. She is realize that death is only horrible if we make it so. In associated with rebirth, helping another wereowl freeing Zoe, Simon also frees himself. In the end of the come into his own: “He began to transform slowly, novel, as he sits facing the rising sun, he understands, painfully. He clearly still found it difficult,” notes Owl finally, that he has had the ability to be released from (199). It is a discernment familiar to her, because, his three hundred years of insatiable lust by simply despite a growing acceptance of her condition, she, letting go of the desire that has bound him. “I think too, is mostly alone, often estranged, and restless in I’m free,” he whispers incredulously, “All I had to do her need to live fully. “Why should I be ashamed of a was go willingly” (198). For the young, the lesson need that ought to be [. . .] simple,” she asks, though inherent in Simon’s choice is ultimately an enabling she knows the answer is a complex and difficult one and important one. (14). “Personal meaningfulness should be recognized as The “lust for life” that imposes itself on the at least one of the possible criteria to be applied by a vampire characters of young adult fiction is a more reader assessing the reading event,” according to difficult one to concede, but no more difficult to Louise Rosenblatt (157). In the case of Zoe and Simon, understand. Theirs is a yearning, it seems, that will there is much for the teenage reader to find personally never be satisfied. In its passion and desire, this meaningful. Both of the characters feel the terrible appetite has the capacity to be all consuming, and, if pain of aloneness and separateness felt also by both not equalized, lead to a moral self-destruction, as well Linnet and Owl of the changeling stories. “I’m so as to the corruption of those who come in contact alone,” thinks Simon, “I’ll be alone forever. There is with it. Who among us has not struggled with such no one to share my burden and make it lighter” (88). passion and desire? Obsessive love, compulsive habits, But he is wrong; he meets Zoe and is able to see a dogmatic beliefs, manic moods, and uncontained way out of the darkness that has engulfed him. energies are disturbing behaviors that turn on us, “Because you talked to me,” he tells Zoe, “I felt like a destroying the very things we mean to create, includ- person again” (95). Likewise, Zoe, in trying to deal ing ourselves. For the vampire character, the wonder with her mother’s terminal illness, feels she can no of living can turn quickly into a hideous nightmare, a longer function in the world her friends inhabit, and nightmare that represents many of the “monster”-like that if she loses Simon, she will be utterly alone. But issues of becoming human, first and foremost being in an act that comes full-cycle, Simon, at the moment how to deal with the knowledge of the finite self. But that he sets himself free, also releases Zoe: “[. . .] you there are other adolescent issues that stem from this have yourself,” he tells her, “A good, kind, strong, frightening passion and desire, as well: what it means brave self, it was you who gave me courage” (l96). In to have and use power over others; how to deal with the loving faith of each other, both characters find the profound feelings of alienation and loneliness; how to courage to face their individual destinies. keep life energies from becoming excesses that ravage The realization of their own mortality is important life itself; and, finally, how to work through the other for all of the characters of these stories. Contrary to enduring existential questions that confront all adult theory which would see teens as in denial of humans, but are arriving for teens for the first time. life’s finitude, these YAL protagonists, vampires Vampire stories generally represent two ways of included, are able to recognize it with an emotional thinking: they either bring out the best or the worst of honesty that many adults fear: “And a voice says to what it means to be human, though this is not to say me again and again this one chilling fact I know is they do so in stark black and white terms. In Klause’s true: that I came into this world from a warm place

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 54 9/3/04, 9:23 AM within someone else; but that I will leave it completely easily imagined than we might think: “[. . .] what alone” (Thirsty 176). While Thirsty is a story full to dark god must struggle somewhere, writhing back and some degree of all the typical fearless vampire camp— forth to escape” (73). Though he fears that at some sex, beautiful girls, violence, and humor—it is also a point he will be brought to the level of the very beast story of questioning and struggling. It is a story that he seeks to kill, Chris also knows that when the time recognizes its own limits and the sometimes inadvert- arrives, he may be helpless against it. So it happens ently insidious nature of evil. “I can’t wait to have that sometimes the dark forces of our lives cannot be burned out of me this stupid thirst, this hunger that escaped, that they wait in secret and in silence to take lies coiled and miserable in my throat and stomach us down with them. like a tapeworm,” anguishes Chris (59). His cry is not Vampires like writer Caroline B. Cooney’s are lost on those who know the pain of being captured by different. In the case of her stories and those that are their own passions and desires. more traditionally like hers, the aim is always to see Rosenblatt also understands this transference of the collective evil that befalls those who give into a understanding and meaning as it pertains to readers: malevolent longing. While there is no denying that “[. . .] in a literary work there is no one else for whom Cooney’s vampires are themselves detestable, it is how we are substituting. We are not vicarious or substitute their evil attributes are imposed on the other charac- Juliets or Leopold Blooms. We are living in the world ters Cooney develops that is most important. For of the work which we have created under guidance of example, in Cooney’s novel The Cheerleader, the main the text and are entering into new potentialities of our character, Althea, becomes a victim of her own desire own natures” (68). Teens who read books like Thirsty to be popular. While the vampire in the story preys on know exactly what it means to prove themselves Althea’s weakness of character, it is Althea whom the against the forces of evil and destruction; they under- reader ultimately holds responsible for the despicable stand the moral tests they will be required to engage act of turning friends over to the vampire. in time and time again. And in their struggle to Much like the fabled Althea, the Queen of articulate the true nature of the darknesses that Calydon who seeks vengeance on her son for acts shadow the world, they question the dark that parades committed against her brothers, Cooney’s Althea itself as light and recognize that in times of deepest cannot control her conflicted feelings, commits ugly conflict and uncertainty, those most willing to identify acts of betrayal, and, in the end, turns on herself in themselves as skeptics may often be the ones most self-loathing. When this Althea realizes that she has persecuted. emotionally and spiritually resigned herself to the evil Anderson’s character Chris is a teen who lives in the vampire represents, she physically commits herself the vague borderlands between adulthood and to him, becoming in the end the very thing she childhood. In the midst of all the wonder and mystery despises. Unlike Simon of The Silver Kiss and Chris of of life, he is thrown into the most frightening, un- Thirsty, two unwilling vampires who resist the curse known aspects of it which he approaches with inflicted on them and struggle against a forced identity humility and reverence. In the end, he knows he has toward their own independence, Althea becomes a no choice but to journey forward. Chris becomes a vampire because she allows socially imposed struc- dangerous shapeshifter, not because he fears death, tures to shape her; in doing so, she forgoes all indica- but because he embraces life. Through his ordeal, tors of moral responsibility and perception and though, he comes to understand that life can be succumbs to an eternity of hunger that will never be incredibly deceptive and self-serving. In his attempt to satiated, no matter the power she has achieved. save what he believes is a spark of greatness and light The list of fictitious vampires and changelings in the world, he unknowingly releases a darkness that seems endless. In addition to the vampires, half- will not be contained; in his attempt to save the vampires, and weremen found in countless other world, he himself will be destroyed, and those who set stories, books like the popular Cirque du Freak series him up for that destruction consider him nothing more by Darren Shan introduce readers to characters who than a pawn. Chris learns that the forces of evil are only somewhat resemble bizarre humans: Mr. Tall, never really controlled, not always apparent, and more Gertha Teeth, Alexander Ribs, Cormac Limbs, Rhamus

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 55 9/3/04, 9:23 AM Twobellies, Hans Hands, Bradley Stretch, a bearded reader in what sounds in their phrasing almost like a lady, the blue-hooded Little People led by Mr. Des- brainwashing dictated by the text” (71). Teens should Tiny, and Evra Von, the snake-boy. “There are always be given more credit than this. They are not mindless openings at the Cirque du Freak” for those who are believers to be molded into our own or even some different, alien, and misfit (Shan 59). Perhaps what writer’s image, but are fresh, and, yes, slightly texts like Cirque du Freak do best is let these insurgent irreverent beings to be called upon and heard. It Others tell their own stories instead of having the behooves us to allow them their voice and their same old stories told about them. Though it may not vision, their pleasure and their appetite “[b]ecause be a particularly pleasant experience to be a freak of there can be no doubt that they are on the move, and nature, an ability to claim and own one’s difference is that they are stalking through forests and slipping vastly preferable to having another simply pass across lawns” (Thirsty 12). Let us meet them at the judgment on it. Teens know this as well as anyone. bend and welcome them to a world we know is Beyond the relics of capes, crucifixes, graveyards, bats, unpredictable, but nonetheless as magical and won- and coffins, beyond the bloody fangs, unreflected drous as they hope it is. Understanding and affirma- images, full moons, spider webs, and howling wolves tion will serve everyone much better than an arsenal of the “undead” lie issues of identity, morality, and of pointed stakes, a show of braided garlic, and a power that young people are not blind to as they draconian insistence on who they not only are, but confront the world. There is a “hunger inside us,” says who we expect them to become. Darren of Cirque du Freak, “that must be fed to be controlled” (20). It is a hunger that is both a power Works Cited and a curse, an appetite that these texts make plain is Anderson, M.T. Thirsty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick never as easily satisfied as it appears on the surface. Press, 2003. Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat. New York: HarperCollins, Adults who see texts such as the ones discussed 1989. here only as catalysts for defiant behavior are missing Cooney, Caroline B. The Cheerleader. New York: Scholastic Inc., the point of why teens read them. The young do not 1991. need characters like Owl, Linnet, Simon, Chris, Foucault, Michael. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Althea, and Darren to give them permission to resist Other Writings 1972-1977. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Random House, 1980. socialized roles; they live in a world that abounds in Kindl, Patricia. Owl in Love. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. those messages. They need these characters and the Klause, Annette Curtis. The Silver Kiss. New York: Random stories they tell as safe houses where the paradoxical House, 1990. questions of emotional and moral struggle as well as Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police. New York: Knopf, 2003. the contradictory issues of humanity may be asked Rosenblatt, Louise. The Reader, the Text, the. Poem: The and thought about without cynicism or deprecation. Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. “There are those,” says Louise Rosenblatt, “who, far Shan, Darren. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. New from thinking of the reader’s activity as free, speak of York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2001. the domination of the text, the submergence of the Winter, Laurel. Growing Wings. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

j50-56_TAR_Summer04 56 9/3/04, 9:23 AM Kay Smith The High School Connection

Back to the Future—One Good Lesson at a Time

love movies, and it doesn’t the Eighties. An aspiring musician may be irrelevant to our students’ matter what kind of movies. in an uninspiring band, McFly current schema and need. For IWhen you love them as I do, spends time with his friend, example, consider a possible there is nothing except a good book Professor Emmett Brown. Although similarity found between our that is as entertaining as two hours he appears to be nothing but a Huckleberry Finn lessons and the of convoluted plots, rich character- scattered and disheveled scientist, incongruity found in “Back to the izations, and critical dialogues. As Emmett has created a time ma- Future.” When Marty McFly asks indiscriminate as I appear to be chine. It can not only launch people Emmett Brown a simple question about my selections, I am, however, into the past and future, but it does about the type of fuel needed for pragmatic about my movie habit: a so with style. The time machine the special DeLorean, he learns that movie must give me something to resides within a plutonium-powered some things have not stayed the chew on. Undoubtedly, this is a DeLorean car, and while driving the same. universal and humorous idiosyn- car at a speed that activates the crasy of English teachers. We enjoy machine, Marty McFly is hurled Marty McFly: Does it run on, on the unrelenting search for “deep through an amazing trip back to regular unleaded gasoline? meanings” and effective outcomes. three previous decades. After a One movie and its wacky theme, a series of outrageous events, Marty Dr. Emmett L. Brown: Unfortu- theme somewhat related to out- completes his important work; acts nately, no. It requires something comes, has continued to intrigue as Cupid for his parents so they can with a little more kick. . . . me. It’s been a few years since the meet, marry, and eventually Plutonium! movie’s debut, but when I visit become his parents. With that classrooms, review old unit plans, done, Marty can move forward in Marty McFly: Plutonium! . . . wait, research new pedagogy, and watch time and get “back to the future.” are you telling me that this students learn, I continue to In our work as secondary sucker is nuclear? struggle with what practices will English educators, we know we lead us nowhere, backward, to the should routinely consider the Although knowledge of fuel future, and paradoxically, “Back to literacy practices that best meet the production and lessons from Mark the Future.” Let me see if I can needs of our students. Times and Twain compare like apples and explain a connection. standards change; we should also oranges, it is the relativity of our It seems like only last year that change. The lesson plans that fill instruction that we are attempting America watched the movie about our filing cabinets, and quite to explore. In preparation for state Marty McFly, a typical teenager of possibly even last year’s lessons, and national assessments, students

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

k57_59TAR_Summer04 57 9/3/04, 9:22 AM would find more significance in Dr. Emmett L. Brown: Precisely! poor Marty McFly experienced the “Huckleberry Finn” instruction that frustration that can occur when helps students “. . . read . . . literary Marty McFly: Whoa! This is proper schema has not been texts from different periods, heavy! achieved. Imagine the confusion he cultures, and genres” (USOE), experienced while innocently trying rather than lessons which require Dr. Emmett L. Brown: There’s that to order a soft drink . . . albeit a learning an outdated Southern word again: “heavy.” Why are drink that had not yet been in- vocabulary or the life and times of things so heavy in the future? Is vented. Samuel Clemens. there a problem with the earth’s Because we English teachers gravitational pull? Lou: You gonna order something, have always loved our content area, Kid? even when our own high school Just a month ago, I enthusiasti- teachers transmitted information cally began a class discussion, but I Marty: Ah, yeah . . . Give me a from yellowed and boring lecture soon learned my students knew Tab. notes, we may understandably little about the content. Stating and underestimate the need to evaluate then outlining the learning objec- Lou: Tab? How can I give you a tab our practice. We like a diet of tive seemed easy enough, but the if you don’t order something? words, parts of speech, persuasive students had no schema or back- essays, metaphysical poetry, and ground information to draw upon. Marty: Alright. Give me a Pepsi classical literature. We like it, and After ten minutes of shallow Free. students should, too. Could it be, answers and confused expressions, however, that our practices make I knew my teaching, no matter how Lou: You want a Pepsi, Pal, you’re literacy instruction less attractive pedantic, would not bring about gonna pay for it! than it could be? comprehension. I could hear the I cringe when I think of the words of Madeline Hunter in my Effective teachers are those weekly spelling and vocabulary lists mind: it was time to “monitor and who constantly monitor what is I once doled out every Monday adjust.” Although changing my working in a classroom. When morning of the year. Doggone it! plans spoiled my unit-plan-magic, learning is compromised, effective Learning to spell and vocabulary backtracking was a necessary teachers determine what isn’t development was good for students, adjustment. Out went the pre- working and why. and new-fangled research that scribed lesson, and in came The changing role of English exposed the worthlessness of my something new. While punting is teachers is shaped by new needs, lists was just nonsense. never recommended, we managed new standards, and a new type of The research was nonsense; to salvage the class period. student. Yes, we must continue to nonsense until I realized students When my lesson wasn’t be knowledge specialists, but memorized my lists for Monday working, why didn’t I just continue remaining specialists will be the and couldn’t remember a simple my instruction and expect the easy part. Our natural love of definition a week later. With that students to fill in the gaps? The English obliges us to read more, sad realization, I began to under- answer is simple. If we expect write more, and analyze more. The stand the necessity of context. Even imperfect comprehension to challenge for the changing educator the brilliant scientist Emmett Brown effectively scaffold to future goes beyond our knowledge. The needed context to understand the learning, it won’t happen. The challenge calls for a reformation. It words of teenager, Marty McFlye. unfortunate consequences will fall requires us to carry student-relevant on our students, and in our unwill- knowledge by fresh strategies. It Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. ingness to change the way we requires us to show new support Are you trying to tell me that my teach, we will ultimately botch for assessment-driven and quantifi- mother has the hots for me? multiple lessons. Like our students, able curriculum. Lastly, it requires

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

k57_59TAR_Summer04 58 9/3/04, 9:22 AM us to re-shape our practice and high school English. In 1993 and 2000 Works Cited meet the needs of America’s most respectively, she earned an M.Ed. and Davies, Tom. “Changing School of differentiated consumer: our Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Thought: Back to the Future.” Paris: Promoting Multimedia in Education and teenagers (Davies). The challenge Brigham Young University. After working ten action-packed years as a Training in European Society Consor- to write our new future is exciting, tium 10 October 2002. secondary principal, she left what she especially when the alternative is to Hunter, Madeline. Mastery Teaching. loved and decided to do what she languish in the past. As English London: Sage, 1982. really loved: teach English education educators, we can help make the “Memorable Quotes from Back to the on the college level. She currently Future.” Internet Movie Data Base. words of Marty McFly a promising teaches Young Adult Literature and 10 Aug. 2004 reality: “Yeah, well, history is Methods of Literacy at Utah Valley Utah State Office of Education. “Core gonna change!” State College. She is married to Curriculum Standards.” Utah State Michael D. Smith, and they are the Office of Education. 10 August 2004 After earning an English and music proud parents of seven children and education degree from Utah State proud grandparents of six. She can be University in Logan, Utah, (Dr.) Kay reached at [email protected]. Smith enjoyed seven years of teaching

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

k57_59TAR_Summer04 59 9/3/04, 9:22 AM Pam B. Cole

For Boys Only: Young Adult Literature about Girls and Dating

ating is a complex coming-of-age experience. It protagonists realistically wrestling with their feelings is an uncertain and often humiliating and about girls follows. D painful time for teens. While boys and girls The cover (a girl’s torso) and title of Markus alike have uncertainties and questions about relation- Zusak’s Getting the Girl (2003) is a sure winner with ships, boys may struggle more with expressing boys. Within the pages is a rugged, yet tender story, themselves and sharing their feelings. Socialized to be about first love and brotherly solidarity. Cameron “manly” and fearing ridicule, many learn to bottle or Wolfe lives in the shadow of his older, athletic brother, avoid emotions. Young adult literature about girls and Ruben. While Cameron yearns for a girlfriend, he dating with which boys can relate can be a safe portal watches Ruben run through girls and listens as Ruben through which boys can explore emotions without fear talks trash about ex-girlfriends. Ruben wants each girl of ridicule; such literature can provide answers to only because she is his next conquest; he has no questions boys may never ask. feelings for girls and has never loved. Feeling disdain Unfortunately, little literature about girls and for Ruben’s behavior, Cameron vows he will treat girls dating appeals to males. How many high school boys, better; however, he must first find a girlfriend. for instance, want to read a Judy Blume or Louise When Ruben and Octavia break up, Cameron’s Rennison novel? Boys need stories about relationships desire becomes a reality as he and Octavia develop a that are not feminine in nature: books about girls and tender relationship. Though Ruben has moved on to dating must be realistic and gritty, not romantic or something better, he becomes jealous of Cameron’s dreamy; they should contain action, suspense, or sensitivity toward Octavia and beats Cameron up. themes such as sports. Covers need to attract young Octavia ends her relationship with Cameron because men specifically; they cannot be cartoonish; nor can she refuses to come between two brothers. Cameron they resemble Harlequinn romances. Titles, too, must feels lost and hopeless; Ruben feels guilty for destroy- capture males. ing the relationship. Novels featuring these characteristics are rare; While a central theme of Zusak’s latest novel is however, as the young adult literature genre matures, brotherly love, the novel has much to offer boys about authors are beginning to write about relationships that relationships. Ruben disrespects girls, while Cameron appeal to boys. Publishers are also becoming increas- is affectionate and respectful. Newly comparing ingly aware of the power of visual images and titles— himself to Cameron, Ruben becomes angry and no if a young adult novel looks too much like something longer feels his former pride in treating girls like a boy read in middle school or looks too feminine, trophies. Healthy relationships, he realizes, are not high school boys will likely be turned off. An analysis about conquering girls, treating them like prizes, or of recently published books that have covers and titles even having sex. Getting all the “hot” girls does not appealing to high school boys and that feature male make him a man; in fact, it is treating women with

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

l60-63_TAR_Summer04 60 9/3/04, 9:20 AM respect that shows strength and character. Cameron through his pain in grace. He walks away from Harley becomes his role model. having learned an important lesson about attraction. Zusak’s novel raises an important issue for boys: Sharon Draper’s The Battle of Jericho (2003), a respect. While some boys value girls, many emulate story with a strong hazing theme, shows how far some Ruben. Sometimes disrespect comes from family boys will go for the girl of their dreams. When Jericho experiences; other times it may come from peer and his cousin and close friend, Josh, pledge for the relations and other cultural forces. Because attitudes Warriors of Distinction, an exclusive club in their and behaviors are difficult to alter, it is unlikely that school, Jericho believes his life could not be better, disrespectful boys will suddenly treat girls better after especially when Arielle, a good-looking classmate, reading Getting the Girl; however, Zusak’s novel can shows interest because he is a soon-to-be warrior. offer boys some insight into the nature of healthy Believing Arielle is worth the price, Jericho endures relationships. Well-developed and realistic, Ruben brutal and dangerous initiation rituals. Only when a Wolfe is a character with whom boys can easily relate. fatal accident occurs does Jericho realize the price of While boys often exploit girls, boys can also be his newly acquired status. victimized. The male protagonist in Ellen Wittlinger’s Most boys will easily relate to Jericho’s desire to Razzle (2001) allows himself to be used, despite impress Arielle. While girls may attract boys by numerous warnings. When fifteen-year-old Kenyon wearing the right clothes and looking desirable, boys Baker moves with his retired parents to Cape Cod to tend to impress girls through actions. Athletic boys restore and operate a dilapidated resort, Kenyon often attract girls through sports; other boys, such as believes he will experience the worst summer ever; Jericho, use organizations or activities that bestow instead, he meets Razzle Penney, a tall, skinny, manliness or social status. eccentric girl, and the two become close friends. Their First relationships are tough, and many teens will friendship is tested, however, when Kenyon falls for go to extremes to maintain a relationship. Draper’s Harley, a gorgeous but trampy girl, despite warnings work raises important questions: What are you willing from Razzle and Harley’s castoffs. to sacrifice for the person of your dreams? What are With the aid of Frank, a gay plumber, Kenyon the consequences? Draper has written an important learns that beauty is truly skin deep, a hard but addition to the young adult genre. important lesson. When Harley tricks him into While some boys sacrifice everything for a shooting photos of her and displaying them in an art relationship, others are caught between two desires. show, hoping she will be discovered and get off Cape Fifteen-year-old Gary Keeling in Kevin Waltman’s Cod, Kenyon realizes Harley played him like all new Nowhere Fast (2002) feels torn: his friend Wilson boys to Cape Cod. Though Razzle lacks Harley’s wants his time; so does Lauryn, his girlfriend. Gary sexual appeal and physical beauty, Kenyon realizes he spends his summer dating Lauryn, drinking and cares for Razzle because she is real and true. Despite getting into trouble with his friend, Wilson—a wild his revelation, Kenyon must leave Razzle when his teen whom Lauryn dislikes. Wanting to be the best aging parents admit repairing the rundown resort is boyfriend ever but also wanting to please his friend, too labor intensive. Gary keeps secrets from Lauryn. Lauryn is not easily Any boy who has ever felt used by a girl can fooled and confronts Gary for not resisting Wilson’s relate to Kenyon’s pain. Though teens place tremen- pressure. dous importance on physical attributes, Wittlinger’s As the summer progresses, Wilson talks Gary into story illustrates that physical beauty means little stealing a car, and Gary helps arrange a meeting unless accompanied by an attractive personality. between the car’s owner, Mr. Roverson, a former Though some boys, like Zusak’s Ruben Wolfe, are teacher, and a student with whom he had an affair. callous and exploit girls, boys can be exploited, too. The plot ends in disaster, when Lauryn, like most Kenyon is a wonderful role model for boys who find people living in the small town of Dearborn Springs, themselves in exploited situations. Unlike many boys Indiana, treats Mr. Roverson as an outcast and turns who become resentful and angry, who lash out and irate when Gary is forced to reveal his secret. develop negative attitudes toward girls, Kenyon works Though Gary wants to be the ideal boyfriend, he

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

l60-63_TAR_Summer04 61 9/3/04, 9:21 AM cannot resist Wilson’s challenges; he has no self- portrayal of a teenage boy perpetuating the cycle of confidence and needs Wilson’s and Mr. Roverson’s domestic violence. Threatened by Caitlin’s beauty and approval. He cannot, no matter how angry Lauryn her independence, Nick uses cruel tactics to isolate gets, refuse Wilson or Mr. Roverson. and control her. Knowing he is emulating his father’s Dating is a transitional time for teens. Having behavior, Nick cannot stop—he is driven by fear. He established childhood friends, teens often feel torn feels small and cannot tolerate being dumped or between hanging out with old friends and dating. humiliated. Making decisions can be difficult—boys, for example, Domestic violence is a serious societal issue. are often teased when they break away from friends to While seeds for domestic violence are sown during spend more time with girlfriends. Long-term friends childhood, relationship experiences during adoles- can feel neglected and are sometimes jealous and cence play important roles in molding young men and resentful. High school boys can relate to Gary’s women. Though painful to read, Flinn’s book paints trapped feelings: On one hand, Gary wants to please an accurate portrait of a young man headed toward a Lauryn; on the other, he wants to hang out with life of domestic violence. Boys who are possessive and Wilson, despite knowing Wilson causes trouble. controlling and who lack insight into their own Though he wants badly to be good enough for Lauryn, behavior may do some self-examination as a result of he cannot control his life and knows he risks losing reading Flinn’s novel. Lauryn. One topic given little attention in young adult Many teens find themselves in abusive relation- literature about boy/girl relationships is teen preg- ships. While child abuse is an ample theme in young nancy. While many young adult novels have been adult literature, dating violence has been explored written from the female point of view, few have been minimally. Young adult literature dealing with dating written from a male perspective. (Too Soon for Jeff by violence has focused primarily on the girl’s perspec- Maryiln Reynolds is an older example.) Margaret tive; Past Forgiving by Gloria D. Miklowitz is a case in Bechard’s Hanging on to Max (2002) is a recent work point. Alex Flinn’s Breathing Underwater (2001), that features a male protagonist struggling with however, features a male protagonist coming to terms becoming a parent. with abusing his girlfriend. Sam Pettigrew should be enjoying his senior year Flinn’s novel opens with sixteen-year-old Nick in high school; however, when his girlfriend becomes Andreas in court for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin. The pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption, judge orders him into counseling and forces him to Sam gives up his college dreams and chooses to raise keep a journal. Nick and Caitin’s story unfolds it alone. Sam and his eleven-month-old son, Max, live through Nick’s writing. Good looking, athletic, and with Sam’s widowed father, who agrees to support popular, Nick seems to have everything; no one them until Sam graduates and begins a construction suspects he is a victim of his father’s abuse. When job. Sam’s father helps little with Max, and Sam Nick falls for Caitlin, his world is complete; however, struggles to juggle parental responsibilities and school. Caitlin becomes increasingly popular, and Nick Despite trying his hardest to care for Max, Sam never becomes obsessed with thoughts of losing her. He feels good enough. His life brightens when Claire, a becomes controlling, insisting that Caitlin cannot have former classmate who has her own baby, enrolls in friends, go anywhere without him, or participate in Sam’s alternative school. They begin dating and social events. Knowing Caitlin is afraid of getting fat, spending time together with their babies. When Max Nick attempts to control her with nasty comments cuts his hand on broken glass at a party, Sam panics. about her weight. He criticizes her weight in front of After realizing Max will be okay, Sam knows he friends and convinces her to swim in a t-shirt so guys cannot care for Max and makes the agonizing decision cannot see her body. The story’s climax occurs when to give him up for adoption. In doing so, he also ends Caitlin goes against Nick’s wishes and sings in a his relationship with Claire—if he cannot have his school event. Filled with rage and fear, Nick beats own son, he cannot take on the responsibility of Caitlin mercilessly. someone else’s child. Breathing Underwater is a poignant and gritty While this book addresses the fears and struggles

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

l60-63_TAR_Summer04 62 9/3/04, 9:21 AM of a teen dad, it also portrays the complexities of have had little opportunity to explore dating issues in dating as a single parent and/or dating someone who young adult literature. Respect, exploitation, physical has a child. When Sam gives up Max, he also sacri- attraction, dating abuse, and teen pregnancy are fices his relationship with Claire, for he cannot spend dating issues facing today’s teens. Other issues such as time with Claire and her daughter without feeling interracial dating and dating older women need guilty for giving up his son. In a time when most exploration, as well. Hopefully, young adult literature young adult literature about teen pregnancy is written will offer boys more as it continues to mature. for girls, this work is an important contribution. A second riveting novel featuring a teen dad as a Dr. Pam B. Cole is Associate Professor of Middle Grades protagonist is The First Part Last (2003) by Angela English Education at Kennesaw State University in Johnson. Bobby is an ordinary urban teenager— Kennesaw, Georgia, where she teaches courses in reading, reckless, impatient, carefree. He hangs out with his adolescent literature and literacy. She is president of best friends, cuts school to celebrate his birthday, eats SIGNAL, a special interest network of the International Reading Association devoted to adolescent literature and pizza, and watches movies. His life changes abruptly co-editor of SIGNAL Journal. She has served as a reading when his girlfriend, Nia, becomes pregnant. In strand contributor to McGraw-Hills’ 2002 mathematics chapters alternating between “then” and “now,” the series. Former Vice-President for the Georgia Council of reader learns of Bobby’s bittersweet relationship with Teachers, Dr. Cole currently coordinates Kennesaw State’s Nia and his current role as a struggling, but devoted, Annual Conference on Literature for Children and single dad. Though his parents are supportive, they Adolescents. insist Bobby assume all parenting roles. Bobby is determined to be the best dad to Feather, his daughter; Works Cited however, sometimes he yearns to be a child again. Bechard, Margaret. Hanging on to Max. Brookfield, CT: Roaring Johnson’s characters are memorable and well- Brook, 2000. Draper, Sharon. The Battle of Jericho. New York: Simon, 2003. developed. Flashbacks reveal that Nia is in an irrevers- Flinn, Alex. Breathing Underwater. New York: Harper, 2001. ible coma, which explains why Bobby has custody of Johnson, Angela. The First Part Last. New York: Simon, 2003. his daughter. Johnson’s language is sparse, her story Miklowitz, Gloria. Past Forgiving. New York: Simon,1995. fast, suspenseful, yet tender; it is a terrific read for Reynolds, Maryilyn. Too Soon for Jeff. Buena Park, CA: Morning boys. Glory, 1994. Relationships are complex, particularly for teens Waltman, Kevin. Nowhere Fast. New York: Scholastic, 2002. Wittlinger, Ellen. Razzle. New York: Simon, 2001. who are dating for the first time. Young adult literature Zusak, Markus. Getting the Girl. New York: Scholastic, 2003. provides teens an opportunity to read about peers working through similar problems. Unlike girls, boys

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

l60-63_TAR_Summer04 63 9/3/04, 9:21 AM Jacqueline N. Glasgow

From Ragsales to Mumblety-peg: The Search for Self in Appalachian Young Adult Literature

“I’ve heered tell a little ‘sang is quickening to the blood.” In the search for self, young adults from this “Woods full of ‘sang there used to be, but I hain’t seen a region need to read novels about the culture, people, prong in ten year.” language, and setting of Appalachia. They need to be “So scarce it might’ nigh swaps for gold.” “Don’t reckon there’s a sprig left on Carr Creek.” able to identify with the subject matter and recognize “Well, now, it ain’t all gone. I seed a three-prong coming themselves in the fictional characters. The characters up from Blackjack, blooming yellow. I see that ‘sang should face situations that students know, or at least standing so feisty, and I says to myself: ‘Ain’t that a sight? have heard of, and react in ways the students can Nobody’s grubbed him yet,’ and I broke a bresh to hide understand. Novels with Appalachian settings and it.” (James Still, River of Earth, 1978, p. 54-55) stories not only represent and validate adolescents who are from this region, but they also provide young adults from other cultures a new understanding and ou’ve just read a sampling of the rich language appreciation of life outside their societal norm. Since from Still’s River of Earth in which two Appalachian adolescents often have difficulty finding Y mountain characters are discussing the scarcity themselves in literature whether due to scarce avail- of ‘sang or ginseng. Appalachia is not just about ability, the “hillbilly” stereotype, or traditional curricu- languages; it is a place and a culture. As a place, lum requirements, a survey of current young adult Appalachia is a chain of mountain ranges that begins novels that are both well-written and sensitive to the in Canada and stretches all the way south to Alabama. cultural and social realities of Appalachian children The ranges include the Blue Ridge Mountains, the should prove valuable. Great Smoky Mountains, and the Allegheny Mountains Culturally conscious literature should reflect in the states of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Appalachian life experiences. As Simms (1982) defines West Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. As a other regional literature, this means that the major culture, Appalachians are a people who value their characters are Appalachian, the story is told from their freedom, independence, and solitude. They live in the perspective, the setting is in an Appalachian commu- high misty mountains along the east coast of the nity or home, and the text includes some means of United States where they are surrounded by natural identifying the characters as Appalachian – physical beauty, wild game, roots and herbs for food and descriptions, language, cultural traditions and so forth. medicine. For mountain people, the strongest most If we use the same criteria to judge the value of unifying value is the sense of place (Jones, 1994). Appalachian literature as for other regional genres, it Mountain people love the land. Although the natural should (1) deal with the land as it impinges on resources of this land have been exploited and humans, (2) deal in-depth with individuals involved in squandered for profit, the Appalachian culture universal conflicts or learning some universal truth, remains strong and functional. (3) reject stereotyping, and (4) provide a heightened

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 64 9/3/04, 9:19 AM sense of place. These criteria will inform our examina- look like sisters, but here is where the adventure tion of young adult literature. begins. While Allie is wearing the dress, an army captain comes to the door to take the Cherokee The Land As It Impinges on Humans Indians away to the new Indian Territory. Allie is mistaken for a “half-breed” and is taken along with Cherokee Removal Leaf’s family down the Trail of Tears. As conditions on The first Appalachians were the Cherokee, who the trail grow more desperate every day, hope of lived in the mountains hundreds of years before rescue fades, while prejudice and terror mount. Allie Columbus arrived in North America. A woodland and Leaf’s friendship strengthens as they make this tribe, they farmed, hunted, and gathered wild berries. journey and endure many hardships together. Their society was based on a system of clans, with women heading households. Then, in the 1700s the Industrialization forces change first people of European descent made their way to the Settlers in Appalachia from the 1700s all the way region. For a while, Native Americans and the new to the late 1800s were almost all subsistence farmers. settlers coexisted peacefully. But as competition for Well into the twentieth century many people in land intensified, a series of fierce battles took place, Appalachia continued to get by on small homesteads, culminating in the forcible removal of the Cherokee to eking out a living with horses or mules – and some an Oklahoma reservation in 1838. still do. However, in the late 1800s, the railroad began Cornelissen’s Soft Rain: A Story of the Cherokee to penetrate the mountains, and with travel facilitated, Trail of Tears (1998) tells a fictional story based on the industry followed. This abrupt change dramatically Cherokee march westward, an incredible 700 miles altered both landscape and people. First came the without adequate food, clothing, and shelter. Soft Rain lumber industry, which provided jobs, but also is nine years old when the soldiers arrive without ravaged the mountainsides and polluted the streams. warning and command her mother to go with them, In time, entire hillsides were eroded by runoffs. Then, taking only the possessions they can pack and carry. with the industrialization of America, coal became a They are forced to leave behind Soft Rain’s blind necessity. Since the mountains of Appalachia were grandmother, her father and brother, and even her rich in anthracite, a superior grade of coal, the puppy. The long and dangerous journey that takes industry grew rapidly. Not only were Appalachian them across rivers and over mountains, through rain farmers lured into the mines, but African-Americans and snow, is a dreadful adventure for Soft Rain and were imported as cheap labor, and European immi- her people. Historical records affirm that fully 16,000 grants migrated to the “company towns” built by the Cherokee died of starvation, disease, exposure to the coal industry in hope of fulfilling their American weather, or mistreatment by soldiers. Soft Rain’s dream. According to Bial (1997), forty percent of the inspiring story of strength and hope is a testament to country’s production came from Appalachian all those who lived through the Trail of Tears. coalfields during World War II. However, after the war, Cherokee Sister (2000), by Debbie Dadey, is the demand fell, mining became mechanized, and another story about two girls from different back- fewer workers were needed. In the 1950s, workers grounds that form a lasting friendship in spite of the were let go and forced into government assistance if Cherokee removal. Allie McAllister is white and comes they wanted to remain in the mountains. While the from a farming family, struggling to make it during natural resources of this land had been exploited and hard times. Leaf Sweetwater is a Cherokee Indian who squandered for profit, the Appalachian culture lives with her grandmother, owner of the Cherokee remained. Young adult literature, then, should reflect trading post. Despite their economic and scholastic the struggle to preserve the land and the culture in differences, Allie and Leaf become best friends. One spite of those who would destroy it. Sunday, Allie slips out of church to visit Leaf at the Bartoletti’s Growing Up in Coal Country (1996) trading post. While at Leaf’s house Allie tries on a captures the legacy of life in coal country. Bartoletti beautiful white animal-skin dress Leaf has in her uses oral history, archival documents, and an abun- closet, and Leaf braids her hair. They are so happy to dance of black-and-white photographs to capture

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 65 9/3/04, 9:19 AM mining life at the turn of the twentieth century. As she great-grand children, Lou and Oz, just as she had reports her careful research, she tells the story of what inherited it from those who went before her. Louisa’s life was like for the children of the coal country in lawyer puts it this way in the courtroom: northeastern Pennsylvania. She writes of the desperate “You know she’d never sell her land, because that ground working conditions, the deplorable squalor found in is as much a part of her family as her great-grandchildren the “patch villages,” and the ever-present dangers of waiting to see what’s going to happen to them. You can’t the occupation. All the stories point out the enormous let Southern Valley steal the woman’s family. All folks have hardships suffered before there were effective unions up on that mountain is each other and their land. That’s all. It may not seem like much to those who don’t live there, and child-labor laws. The words and work of children or for people who seek nothing but to destroy the rock and are weighted equally with the efforts of the Molly trees. But rest assured, it means everything to the people McGuires, Mother Jones, and other adult players. who call the mountains home” (359). Captioned, black-and-white photographs appear on Moving as his speech was the verdict goes in favor of almost every page, allowing the images to play a Southern Valley. There was no justice for Louisa Mae powerful role in retelling the children’s stories. Cardinal, but in the end the children are able to In another nonfiction work, In Coal Country remain in the mountains they had come to love. (1987) by Judith Hendershot and illustrated by Another book that reflects the struggle to preserve Thomas Allen, the life of a miner’s family is vividly the land and the culture in spite of strip-mining seen through the eyes of his young daughter in the destruction is Hamilton’s Newbery Medal Book, M.C. nostalgic glimpse of growing up in an Ohio coal- Higgins, The Great (1974). Mayo Cornelius Higgins is mining town during the 1930’s. This family lived in a an African-American hero who must come to terms place called Company Row built by the owners of the with his own cultural heritage in order to survive. As Black Diamond Mine. The young narrator describes he sits on his gleaming, forty-foot steel pole on a playing on the gob piles which remained after the bicycle seat towering over his home, he surveys his good coal was sorted out and dumped into railroad world and wonders how to save Sarah’s Mountain cars, collecting coal that rolled off the cars and cooling from the strip mining spoil heap that threatens to off by standing under Bernice Falls. Kids played come crashing down on his ancestral home and hopscotch and mumblety-peg in the dirt and built family. Sarah’s Mountain was named after M.C.’s slave campfires in the summer, but Christmas was her ancestor who, like Hamilton’s Grandfather Perry, favorite holiday when they cut down the tree and escaped to Ohio. All Sarah’s descendants are living on roasted goose for dinner. While the reminiscence of or buried in the mountain. In his desperation, M.C. childhood is innocent, the power of the book lies in hopes that a man collecting folk songs will hear his the dark counterpoint that underlies text. The illustra- mother, Banina Higgins, sing, and will take them all tions portray the darkness of the environment from away and make her a star. His world, which includes a black creek water, to black engine smoke, to grit on friendship with a family his father thinks is “witchy,” the table. is also entered by a wandering teenage girl who stays In Baldacci’s Wish You Well (2000), eighty-year- just long enough to help M.C. learn something about old Louisa Mae has to fight hard to keep her land from his own responsibility for making choices and deci- the Southern Valley Coal and Gas Company. They sions. In the end, M.C. realizes that he himself must want to buy her land, not just the mineral rights to it, take some action to save himself and his family. but there is no way Louisa will sell it to them. “You ain’t scalping this land like you done everywhere else” Universal Conflicts and Lessons: Grow- (260). She said, “I got me a deed to this land says I own it, but nobody really owns the mountains. I just ing Up and Finding Oneself watching over ’em while I’m here. And they give me Culturally conscious fiction deals with in-depth all I need” (260). No argument coal company officials individuals involved in universal conflicts or learning make for a good living and a better life convince her. some universal truth. This aspect focuses on young- Louisa stands her ground. She means for her land to sters making some step(s) toward maturity as indi- stay in the family, and intends to pass it on to her vidual. While the protagonists often are also involved

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 66 9/3/04, 9:19 AM in relationships with family and peers, according to friends, and doesn’t want anyone to know about his Simms, “the stories involve (1) achieving some singing. It’s hard to keep that a secret, since some of personal goal, (2) acquiring some insight into them- the students have seen him on TV and there is a story selves as individuals, and (3) recognizing their growth in the newspaper about him. James needs insight into over a given period of time, or, in the case of the his gift of music to find his place in the family. books for older readers, (4) some combination of all When Zinny Taylor, in Creech’s Chasing Redbird the above” (1982, 61). (1997), discovers a mysterious, overgrown trail that Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Newbery Medal book, begins on her family’s farm in Bybanks, Kentucky, she Shiloh (2000), is the story of a young boy whose is determined to clear it from start to finish. For her, it personal goal is to save an abused, runaway dog from represents a place of her own, a place she could go to its angry owner. As the story begins Marty Preston get away from her family, to grow up and find herself. discovers a young beagle in the hills of Tyler County “The trail was curving in the direction of the woods, behind his home. Marty, sensitive to the dog’s cower- and part of me was eager to enter them to see where ing from some kind of abuse, befriends him and the trail would lead, and part of me was pigeon- names him Shiloh. In his pursuit of justice for the dog, hearted, uneasy about what might await me there” Marty exposes his family to the dog’s abusive owner, (31). She may have felt uneasy, but she was not afraid Judd Travers. Judd is the town’s tobacco spitting to discover the truth. Along this journey of uncovering iconoclast. He is cruel and mean to his hunting dogs – an old Indian trail, she also uncovered her own beating them and starving them so they’ll find the feelings about her beloved late aunt and cousin, the prey. Marty is caught in the ethical dilemma of parents she had never been close to, and a boy who returning the beagle to its legal owner versus hiding pursued her in spite of her obsession on the trail. This the dog to save him from further abuse. His decision passion to uncover the trail that was eventually to hide him only complicates the matter since the dog opened to the public as Redbird Trail, led Zinny home has been attacked and severely injured. After Doc with a strong identity and knowledge of her unique Murphy sews up the wounds, Marty is still faced with contribution and place on the earth. not only finding a way to repay the doctor, but also Woodrow, in White’s Newbery Honor Book, Belle still having to return the animal to Judd. In the end, Prater’s Boy (1996), must deal with his mother’s Marty agrees to do back-breaking work for this mean disappearance in order to grow up and find himself. man in the hopes of accomplishing his goal of obtain- After Belle Prater vanishes early one morning, ing Shiloh for his own. Woodrow is sent to live with his grandparents in Coal In Katherine Paterson’s Come Sing, Jimmy Jo Station, Virginia. His cousin, Gypsy, lives next door (1985), all James Johnson wants to do is sing the and is just as curious as the rest of the town about his songs he loves with his Grandmother. James has been secret concerning his mother’s disappearance. raised in West Virginia by his Grandma, while his Woodrow is cross-eyed and wears hand-me-downs, Mother, Father, Grandpa, and Uncle Earl have been but Gypsy is impressed by his charm and witty stories. out on the road singing country music at tent meet- As they spend time together, the cousins find they ings, picnics, and family reunions. After returning have a lot more in common. Gypsy wonders how from their most recent trip, the family argues over Woodrow can accept his mother’s disappearance whether or not to hire a manager. When a potential when she’s never gotten over her father’s suicide manager, Eddie Switten visits the house and hears seven years earlier. As time passes and the two come James singing, he recognizes that James has “the gift.” to trust each other with their loss and sorrow, they It doesn’t take Switten long to see that James should find a way to share their pain and face the reality that play a part in the family’s band. They get a six-month a parent had left them, not because they didn’t love contract with a TV show, “Country Time,” in Virginia them, but because “their pain was bigger than their and move there, leaving Grandma at home. Although love. You had to forgive them for that” (195). Eventu- James becomes the star of the band and has many ally, Woodrow finds he can release his secret concern- adoring fans, he hates his stage name, “Jimmy Jo.” He ing the whereabouts of his mother and share his pain is also behind in his new school, doesn’t have any with his cousin.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 67 9/3/04, 9:20 AM Overcoming the loss of a loved one is also a Ridge, West Virginia, she says, “We children had to theme in Cynthia Rylant’s Newbery Medal Book, make do with each other and what we found in the Missing May (1992). After her parents die and when mountains, and do you know, I was never bored!” In none of her relatives in Ohio want her, Summer is sent her books, especially in, When I Was Young in the to live with her Aunt May and Uncle Ob in West Mountains (1982), Rylant depicts the culture of her Virginia. Her Uncle Ob, a disabled World War II grandparents through the simple home-cooked meals, veteran, enjoys creating art sculptures in the form of visits to the outhouse in the middle of the night, whirligigs and her Aunt May enjoys gardening. They swimming in a mud hole, baptism in the mountain live in a broken-down trailer with peeling aluminum, river, visits to the country store, water pump by hand, missing windows, and sinking front steps located in and church in the one-room school house. Her stories Deep Water in Fayette County. Summer has never seen take us back in time to a culture that was isolated two people more in love than her elderly aunt and from mainstream America but which thrives on strong uncle. She found all the love and family she had been relationships among the people. missing all her life right there with Ob and May. Life Gloria Houston also takes us to the Blue Ridge was good for six years, and then May dies from her Mountains and a most unforgettable character in My untreated diabetes. Not only does Summer have her Great-Aunt Arizona (1992). Arizona was born in a log own grief to deal with, but she fears losing Ob, as cabin her papa built in the meadow on Henson Creek. well. Summer’s identity crisis depends on moving Arizona is a typical mountain girl who likes to grow through the grieving process herself and at the same flowers, sing, and square dance to the music of the time helping Uncle Ob cope with his great loss. fiddler on Saturday night. But what she likes most of Another universal experience for young people is all is to read—and dream—about all the faraway the search for religion. In Cynthia Rylant’s Newbery places she would like to visit one day. Well, Arizona Honor book, A Fine White Dust (1986), Pete, a only goes to those faraway places in her imagination. thirteen-year-old North Carolina boy, has been Instead she stays in the Blue Ridge Mountains where attending the Baptist church and is searching for she was born and teaches generations of children in something that would save him from going to hell. her one-room schoolhouse “about the words and When the Preacher Man, James W. Carson, comes to numbers and the faraway places they would visit town to lead a revival, Pete is sure he has found what someday” during her fifty-seven-year teaching career. he was looking for. He has a religious experience that Another memorable character is found in George changes his life, and then he strikes up a friendship Ella Lyon’s With a Hammer for My Heart (1997), Ada with the Preacher Man, making every attempt to Smith. Protagonist Lawanda Ingle comes to know her follow in his footsteps. Of course, this obsession spiritual values and the power of prayer through the causes conflicts with his loving, but non-religious influence of her eccentric Grandmother, Mamaw parents and his best friend, Rufus, an avowed atheist. Smith, who is struck by a bright light in the spirit They fail to share the joy of his salvation or warm up Sunday at Splinter Creek Church and has a vision. In to the Preacher. Then in the final days of the revival, the vision she sees Mother Jesus who gives her a gift the Preacher Man invites Pete to leave town with him. of healing in her hands with a command, “Don’t let Pete agrees to go, but, when betrayed, learns some nobody go to bed before their time” (16). But when painful lessons about trust and friendship. she testifies in front of the congregation, they drag her out and excommunicate her. Even though they Characters Free of Stereotyping in consider Mother Jesus to be sacrilegious, in hard times and desperate situations, many are healed by her Strong Family Relationships laying on of hands and waving of a feather to chase When characters are free of stereotyping, they the sickness away. When Lawanda is critically ill, the reflect the culture in producing memorable, family family carries her over the mountains in pouring rain relationships with characters true to the culture of the so that Mamaw can pray for her and she can be region. As Cynthia Rylant reflects on her childhood healed. Because she has experienced this healing memories of living with her grandparents in Cool herself, Lawanda is quite incensed when a new

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 68 9/3/04, 9:20 AM classmate, Jimmy says in Civics class, “You should see A Heightened Sense of Place her. Big crazy woman, goes around singing and healing people with a feather” (21). Lawanda does Novels that provide a heightened sense of place her best to defend Mamaw at the time, but then are ones that take the reader to a situation so unique begins to doubt. Lawanda seeks out Mamaw to verify to the culture that the experience would have little the story for herself and find out the truth of her likelihood of occurring elsewhere. For instance, in healing power. Bates’ picture book, Ragsale (1995), illustrated by In The Star Fisher (1991), Laurence Yep draws on Chapman-Crane, ragsalin’ makes Saturday a special his own family history to depict a Chinese family’s family day in Appalachia. In the book, Jessann, her experiences when they arrive from Ohio to open a mom, sister Eunice, Mamaw, Aunt Mary Jane and laundry in 1927. When they get off the train in cousin Billie Jo set off for ragsales. Driving to various Clarksburg, West Virginia, they are the first Asians any sales they look for the things they need, but also hope of the town’s people have seen. As a result, the to find some unique treasures. The Stuart Robinson language barrier, as well as outward appearances, ragsale is at Mommy’s old high school, so she always make them the brunt of cruel taunts. Fortunately, their sees people she knows. While her mom looks for landlady, a retired schoolmistress, warmly welcomes clothes for the family, Jessann tries to find some and befriends them. The protagonist, Joan Lee is mittens for riding the sled and Billie Jo combs through fifteen, and unlike her parents, she and her siblings the piles of used paperbacks. Bates says that “Ragsales were born in the United States and speak English are a special kind of used clothing store, and when I fluently. She serves as translator for her parents and was a little girl we went to the ragsale about every shelters them from cruel comments. At school, Joan weekend. Wearing used clothes is a way of not has a difficult adjustment, until she meets another wasting things that are still good.” She says that even outcast friend who helps her realize that she is not the though ragsales aren’t as prevalent now, “going to only one struggling to find a niche. Still, “The Star them is as much fun as ever.” Fisher,” a Chinese folk tale Joan shares with her little While rural poverty is a universal experience, Just sister, symbolizes Joan’s position even after she gains Juice (1998) by Karen Hesse tells the inspiring story of acceptance: like the child of the magical kingfisher the eight members of the Faulstich family who learned who is held captive in human form by her mortal to endure impoverished conditions ever since Pa got husband, Joan feels caught between two cultures: the laid off from the mine. The opening image of Ma Chinese and the Appalachian. “spreading grape jelly so thin on the sliced white Another story rejecting stereotypes is Borrowed bread you can hardly find the purple” suggests the Children (1999) by George Ella Lyon. It is set in level of poverty of the Faulstich family. The story is Kentucky during the Great Depression. When Mama is narrated by nine-year-old Justus (“Juice”) Faulstich forced to stay in bed for six weeks after the birth of who has to repeat third, grade because no matter how William, it is twelve-year-old Amanda Perritt (Mandy) hard she tries, she simply can’t learn to read. She who reluctantly drops out of school to care of her often plays truant and stays home, where she is younger siblings and keep house for her older brothers happiest working with Pa in his machine shop in the and father. She is responsible for taking care of the yard. Illiteracy is an underlying issue: Pa keeps it new baby until her Mama is able to take over. Then, secret that he can’t read, and because he can’t deal Mandy is sent to visit her well-to-do grandparents in with the official papers, the family could lose their Memphis during the Christmas holiday to give her a house. Juice sympathizes with her Pa’s secret and his break from all her responsibilities. Here, Mandy learns depression: “We all look out for him. But I look out for about her family history. She hears stories of her him best, even Ma says so.” At the same time she mother’s childhood and learns about the dark secrets realizes that as she learns to read, she may have to of her Aunt Laura. Mandy bonds with her grandpar- leave him behind: “Pa and me, we’ve been careful ents and, with a new understanding of her family, tiptoeing around this particular secret. But I can’t let returns home with a sense of her own individuality as Pa’s half of the secret keep me from doing something well as what it means to be part of a family. about mine.” In a climactic scene when Ma gives

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 69 9/3/04, 9:20 AM birth, Juice is the only one at home, and she makes Jones, L. Appalachian Values. Photography by Warren Brunner. herself read the sugar monitor and saves Ma’s life. Ashland, KY: The Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994. Even through the darkest moments of truant officers, Sims, Rudine. Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experi- ence in Contemporary Children’s Fiction. Urbana, ILL: National court summons, and the fear of losing their home, the Council of Teachers of English, 1982. Faulstich family remains hopeful and creative in Still, James. River of Earth. Lexington: University of Kentucky finding inner resources to cope with their bleak Press, 1940. situation. Appalachian Literature Children’s Picture Books The Search for Self in Appalachian Adams, Shelly Lee. Appalachian Legacy. Jackson: University Young Adult Literature Press of Mississippi, 1998. Bates, Artie Ann. Ragsale. Illustrated by Jeff Chapman-Crane. What matters in Appalachian literature is that New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. young adults examine their beliefs and validate their Bial, Raymond. Mist Over the Mountains: Appalachia and Its culture and family heritage. While Appalachian values People. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. may be marginalized in mainstream American culture, Caudill, Rebecca. A Pocketful of Cricket. New York: Holt, Rinehart the literature discussed here gives adolescents a means and Winston, 1964. Hendershot, Judith. In Coal Country. Illustrated by Thomas B. to search for their identities within a safe context Allen. New York: Dragonfly Books, Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. where their values are validated. Whether they go to Houston, Gloria. Littlejim’s Gift: An Appalachian Christmas Story. Ragsales on Saturdays or play Mumbletypeg with their Illustrated by Thomas B. Allen. New York: Philomel Books, friends, adolescents should find role models in the 1994. literature they read. When readers discover their own Houston, Gloria. My Great-Aunt Arizona. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. feelings in the character of a book, they experience the Lyon, George Ella. Cecil’s Story. Illustrated by Peter Catalanotto. events of the story as though they were happening to New York: Orchard Books, 1991. themselves, thus validating their life experiences. They Lyon George Ella. Come A Tide. Pictures by Stephen Gammell. can also learn about the history and politics of New York: Orchard Books, 1990. Appalachia. For readers not living in Appalachia, this Lyon, George Ella. Counting on the Woods: A Poem. Photo- literature not only acquaints them with the values of graphs by Ann W. Olson. Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 1998. Lyon, George Ella. Mama is a Miner. Illustrated by Peter mountain people, but readers can also identify with Catalanotto. New York: Orchard Books, 1994. the characters who struggle with universal themes Lyon, George Ella. Who Came Down That Road? Illustrated by such as poverty, family relationships, cultural heritage, Peter Catalanotto. New York: Orchard Books, 1992. and spiritual matters. In Appalachian Young Adult Mills, Lauren. The Rag Coat. New York: Little, Brown, and Literature, readers searching for their identity and Company, 1991. Rylant, Cynthia. Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds. looking for a yardstick against which to measure Ilustrated by Barry Moser. New York: Harcourt Brace & themselves can find help in defining the person they Company, 1991. want to become. Whether they come to the mountains Rylant, Cynthia. The Blue Hill Meadows. Illustrated by Ellen to learn to understand them like Louisa in Wish You Beier. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1997. Well, or want to come to terms with the family history Rylant, Cynthia. Miss Maggie. Illustrated by Thomas DiGrazia. like Zinny in Chasing Redbird, or want to leave their New York: E.P. Dutton, 1983 Rylant, Cynthia. Night in the Country. Illustrated by Mary Szilagyi. mountain home for a college education like Lawanda New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1986. in With A Hammer for My Heart, readers can identify Rylant, Cynthia. The Relatives Came. Illustrated by Stephen with the subject matter and recognize themselves in Gammell. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1985. the fictional characters. Rylant, Cynthia. When I was Young in the Mountains. Illustrated by Diane Goode. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982. Jacqueline N. Glasgow is an Associate Professor of Folktales English Education at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Chase, Richard (ed.). Grandfather Tales. New York: The Riverside Press, 1948. Works Cited Chase, Richard (ed.). The Jack Tales. New York: Houghton Bial, Raymond. Mist Over the Mountains: Appalachia and Its Mifflin, 1943. People. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 70 9/3/04, 9:20 AM McKissack, Patricia. The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Houston, Gloria. Mountain Valor. New York: Putnam & Grosset Supernatural. Illustrated by Brian Pinkney. New York: Alfred A. Group, 1994. Knopf, 1992. Lowry, Lois. Rabble Starkey. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1987. Poetry Lyon, George Ella. Borrowed Children. Lexington: The University Carson, Jo. Stories I Ain’t Told Nobody Yet. New York: Orchard Press of Kentucky, 1999. Books, 1989 Lyon, George Ella. The Stranger I Left Behind. New York: Troll, Baber, Bob Henry, George Ella Lyon and Gurney Norman (eds.). 1989. Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Lyon, George Ella. With a Hammer for My Heart. New York: Poetry Project. Ashland, KY: The Jesse Stuart Foundation, Avon Books,1997. 1994. Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh. New York: Atheneum, 1991. Rylant, Cynthia. Something Permanent. Photographs by Walker Naylor, Phylllis Reynolds. Shiloh Season. New York: Atheneum, Evans. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. 1996. Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Saving Shiloh. New York: Atheneum, Young Adult Fiction 1997. Baldacci, David. Wish You Well. New York: Warner Books, 2000. Paterson, Katherine. Come Sing, Jimmy Jo. New York: Puffin Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Growing Up in Coal Country. New Books, 1985. York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. Rappaport, Doreen. Trouble at the Mines, Illustrated by Joan Caudill, Rebecca. Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charley? Sandin, Crowell, 1987. Illustrated by Nancy Grossman. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Reeder, Carolyn. Moonshiner’s Son. New York: Macmillan, 1993. Winston, 1966. Rylant, Cynthia. A Fine White Dust. New York: Aladdin Paper- Cornelissen, Cornelia. Soft Rain: A Story of the Cherokee Trail of backs, 1986. Tears. New York: Delacorte Press, 1998. Rylant, Cynthia. Missing May. New York: Orchard Books, 1992. Creech, Sharon. Chasing Redbird. New York: Harpercollins, White, Ruth. Belle Prater’s Boy. New York: Bantam Doubleday 1997. Dell Books, 1996. Dadey, Debbie. Cherokee Sister. New York: Dell Yearling, 2000. White, Ruth. Memories of Summer. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Dadey, Debbie. Whistler’s Hollow. New York: Bloomsbury Giroux, 2000. Children’s Books, 2002. White, Ruth. Sweet Creek Holler, New York: Farrar, Strauss, Hamilton, Virginia. Cousins. New York: Scholastic, 1990. Giroux, 1988. Hamilton, Virginia. Second Cousins. New York: Scholastic, 1998. White, Ruth. Weeping Willow. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, Hamilton, Virginia. M.C. Higgins, the Great. New York: Aladdin 1992. Paperbacks, 1974. Yep, Laurence. The Star Fisher. New York: Morrow Junior Books, Hesse, Karen. Just Juice. New York: Scholastic, 1998. 1991. Houston, Goria. Littlejim’s Dreams. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

m64-71_TAR_Summer04 71 9/3/04, 9:20 AM Jim Blasingame

Writing to the Teenager Inside: A Talk with Kevin Brooks

evin Brooks burst upon the that Moo faces with the police and the young adult literature scene gangster, you haven’t got too many K with Martyn Pig (Chicken options, really. One of the options is House/Scholastic 2003) and was an that you stand up and face it, but that instant favorite with young people. His means you become kind of like the rapid-fire delivery of myriad details people who are making your life hell. and lovable/hate-able anti-hero Another way is to just sort of put up protagonists speak to teenagers and with it and run away. “the teenager inside us all,” as Kevin The “kissing the rain” part describes the place he goes to find that is almost like embracing the attitude special voice, the voice of “Moo” which is thrust at you, which is Nelson, for example, the overweight hurting you rather than fighting or hero of Kissing the Rain. Kevin shared running away from it. That’s what I his own story and his views on the was attempting to capture. writing craft face to face at the 2003 ALAN Workshop in San Francisco. TAR: Are most kids rainmakers or rain-takers?

TAR: In Kissing the Rain you introduce the reader to Kevin: Given a chance, most of them would be rain your protagonist and narrator, Mike Nelson, makers, I think. There’s that sort of pecking order nicknamed Moo by his classmates, in reference to thing, so at least they’ll be the top bully in their his weight problem. group. I think Moo does it to an extent with his “Kissing the Rain” is Moo’s expression for only friend, Brady. embracing the insulting remarks about his obesity As I created Moo’s personality, I didn’t want that rain down on him from his classmates. How the reader to just feel sorry for him, but rather I did you come up with that expression? Is it from wanted the reader to bounce on the edge of feeling your own life? sorry for him—acknowledging the problems in his life, but also from the negative side, seeing why he Kevin: I think it’s one of those things that just pops was in the situation he was in. He’s not the most into my head, actually. I wanted to somehow draw attractive, the nicest person in the world. I wanted together the taunting and the rain; the point of it the reader to see him from different sides, and I being that if you’re in that situation where you’re attempted to keep the balance between two being bullied, which ties into the larger dilemma perspectives on Moo.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 72 9/3/04, 9:18 AM Lucas and Kissing the Rain Reviewes and comments by Wendy Kelleher, Arizona State University Department of English

evin Brooks writes with the home they see Lucas and story teller, however, is his sense Keasy grace of a poet, using Caitlin’s life begins to change; of pacing. He intuitively juxta- language that leaves the reader unlike every other boy she’s poses his description of sea and breathless at times as he speaks known, he doesn’t feel “the need weather rhythms and the unfold- the truth in ways that adolescents to act at all. He was just himself, ing events, much like the orches- need to hear it. Brooks pulls no take it or leave it” (97). This tration of music underlying punches, softens no blows. His simple humility draws Caitlin but scenes portrayed on the movie protagonists tell stories without repels nearly everyone else on the screen. To Kevin Brooks, crying neat, happy endings, stories that island, and within a few days, yourself a story does work. “All are real and reach into the heart he’s the target of a campaign of you have to do is tell the truth, of truth, and then stand back and terror conducted by some of the tell it like it was,” says Caitlin’s allow the reader to react without most popular (and powerful) dad (inside page). He’s abso- prompts or orchestration. There island kids. lutely right. Lucas is proof of that. is no formulaic tidiness in Kevin The story reaches its climax Brooks’s novels. There is only during a stormy evening when an Brooks, Kevin. Lucas. New York: reality, a camera turning on and a old man stumbles upon a teenage Scholastic, Inc., 2003. camera turning off. No narration, girl’s viciously raped and torn no pedantic moralizing, no lesson body, and Lucas is accused. In Kissing the Rain to be learned. Just life as it happens. the ensuing witch hunt, he seeks I’d place Kevin Brooks’ sanctuary with Caitlin and her second novel, Kissing the Rain, Lucas father as swarming villagers firmly in the same category as Kevin Brooks’s third novel scream for “justice” outside their other male coming of age stories Lucas is the story of Caitlin house. When he realizes they’ll such as Stotan or The Outsiders, McCann, a teenage girl living on not be satisfied till they have but with a much more sinister, the island of Hale among an him, he leaps over the crowd and knifelike edge. The story’s ethnocentric and cruel citizenry runs for his shelter across the protagonist, Mike Nelson, a.k.a. far too concerned about their own quicksand mudflats. Moo (so nicknamed by his peers inane existence. She learns the Just as the reader breaths a for his weight problem) has a dimensions of this awful truth sigh of relief at his brilliant cynical self image; “I ain’t COOL, when Lucas ambles into her life. escape, Lucas makes a choice I ain’t LEAN, I ain’t HARD, I ain’t Lucas is a gypsy, a rover, a that leaves Caitlin grasping for MEAN … I ain’t even got a NICE man without a country who solace in a place where none PERSONALITY,” he tells us; in doesn’t conform to any societal exists. fact, he’s just fat, the victim of standard but thinks and lives for Lucas is appropriate for his male and female classmates’ himself; he is an island and middle and high school, but jeers, taunts, and daily beatings, needs no one. Caitlin cannot teachers might be wise to offer a which he has come to refer to as fathom her love and fascination disclaimer about violence and “the rain.” for Lucas, but the reader will; we sexual content. At 400 plus The story opens just a few always want what we cannot pages, the book is involved and hours before its ending as Moo have. sometimes the storyline gets lost flashes back a year earlier to a The story opens with Caitlin in Caitlin’s introspection about rainy November night when all and her dad driving her brother events and people. One of his troubles began on a bridge back from college. On the trip Brook’s particular strengths as a overlooking the A12 Highway.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 73 9/3/04, 9:18 AM This is Moo’s thinking place, his Moo’s only friend and fellow Moo soon finds himself on refuge, until one particular night outcast, Brady, begs for details, the horns of a dilemma. If he tells when he sees an obviously telling him that Vine is a the truth in court, that Vine is staged murder. From his vantage “badass”. His curiosity piqued, innocent, the police threaten to point on the bridge, he observes Moo does a Google search and send his dad to jail on trumped what happens with the clarity finds out more than he wants to up charges. If he lies and says and detail of a young man who know. His conclusion? “I can SEE that Vine is guilty, the mobster pays attention to everything myself getting dragged into a has promised to make good on around him. When police talk to whole heap of BADASSery.” threats of his own. The line him later the next day, he calmly Back at school Moo is between good guys and bad is reports everything he saw, surprised to find the “rain” of badly blurred, but as the novel repeating the particulars without insults has stopped. The kids ask approaches its ending Moo so much as a pause. him about what he saw and beg prepares to put an unlikely plan That night as Moo watches him for details. He’s in the glory into action that he hopes will TV news coverage of the event, it seat, and while a part of him stop all the “rain” for good. dawns on him that what he enjoys the notoriety, another part actually witnessed was a police remembers the capriciousness of Brooks, Kevin. Kissing the Rain. frame up of a local mobster and the crowd. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2004. murderer named Keith Vine.

TAR: Moo’s narration is almost stream of conscious- and how teenage kids, especially outcasts, experi- ness—a rapid-fire delivery—mixing long sentences ence it. For example, in the typical school cafeteria, with sentences of only two words, followed by like Mike Nelson’s school cafeteria, the unpopular words or phrases in capitals to emphasize a point. kid faces the daily problem that no peers will let It’s easy to follow but it’s kind of like watching an him eat lunch at their table. How do you know kids MTV music video or a television advertisement in this age so well? Were you ever a teacher? that lots of images and ideas come very quickly. In this writing style of yours, you accurately convey a Kevin: I was never a teacher, but what I do remember grand number of ideas in a very small space. Do very well from when I was a teenager are the you notice the myriad of details in real life? emotions. I know exactly how I felt in certain situations, and I still feel some of the same emo- Kevin: I’ve always felt that the details are of great tions in similar situations now. I am much better at importance to a writer, and I have always tended to dealing with them now, but if I go into a room full notice everything around me. I think it’s the small of strange people now, I’ll feel virtually the same as things that actually characterize life. You put them I did when I was a kid. Now, of course, I’ve done it all together, and that’s what comprises the whole. I so many times that I’ve learned how to deal with it, have always noticed, for example, the way that but beneath that, the same instinctive, emotional someone moves their eyes, the way they stand. The reaction takes place. small things are everywhere, and they make up the Those kinds of things that seem small now world. In good writing the author can more didn’t seem small at all back then. Every single day, accurately convey the essence of something every single minute, there is stuff for a teenager to through a multitude of details rather than long, deal with it. As we get older, it’s probably still direct descriptions. there, but we have learned to deal with it. Until I was eleven, I went to a small village TAR: You demonstrate a skill for portraying the school, but then I won a scholarship to a big, cruelty, madness, strangeness, and humor of school wealthy, private school. Suddenly, I found myself

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 74 9/3/04, 9:18 AM away from the kids I grew up with and with kids nity is often there for him to make fun of himself, who were much wealthier. I often took sanctuary in and he takes it. It seems to be a tool that he uses to books. Twenty years later, I was commuting to defend himself. Is this dryness common to the work in London, sitting on the train among lots of British sense of humor? Is Moo’s sense of humor people, reading a book, and I realized that not actually your sense of humor? much had changed. Adults drive cars instead of bikes, and carry briefcases instead of satchels and Kevin: It’s mine. I’m not a bleak person, but I am sort talk about markets, but it’s all pretty much the of dry in my sense of humor. Sometimes when I’m same, just the outer layer changes. The real stuff is writing some of the humor comes through, but still the same. some may need to be explained to Americans because it can be in the British style. I suppose TAR: Speaking of sanctuary, real or figurative, Mike there are different national senses of humor; it’s Nelson finds sanctuary at a bridge where he passes risky to generalize, but I think there can be differ- time watching the traffic go by and escaping from ences. I think humor works very well in dark the world. When you were his age, did you have a situations. A story is hard to read if it is all dark, bridge or place of sanctuary where you went, and but the humor makes it readable. do you think that’s a common thing for adoles- It can’t all be dry, either, and different styles of cents? humor work in different ways. Some of the best comedy I have seen, like the American television Kevin: Yes. Although I had two brothers, I quite show, The Simpsons, isn’t just funny but has some enjoyed being on my own. The house I grew up in point to make. I even like sort of middle-of-the-road had a sort of an attached garage with a flat roof and things like Cheers and Friends. They’re funny in a a little parapet. You could get down on the roof different way, and actually English humor isn’t from the landing window, and I used to spend a lot always dry; we have Benny Hill type of humor, as of time on the garage roof. I would spend a lot of well. time just sitting up there, really, on my own, and I never got tired of looking down. TAR: Early in Kissing the Rain, Moo’s dad has on a Maybe not everyone is this way—some people Homer Simpson shirt, so I couldn’t help but from find sanctuary in the company of other people that point on think of him as Homer Simpson. Was rather than being alone, but I think everybody has that intentional on your part? a place where they go to feel sanctuary. Even now, I have a place; my sanctuary now is sitting in my Kevin: Just a little inside out joke. The image goes little room in front of my computer, writing. into the back of your mind, and a character is built without having to say, “He looks like so and so,” in TAR: The bridge works well for Mike Nelson because an overt description. it works as a plot device in the conflict because he sees the murder take place there, and it works in TAR: Moo’s dark and quirky sense of humor, the characterization of Moo, as well. twists and turns of the plot, and your distinctive writing style combine to give the book a sort of Kevin: I think about stories a lot before I write them. Chris Crutcher, Ken Kesey, Hunter Thompson flavor Before the writing of this book, I actually saw a boy with perhaps some overtones of Robert Cormier. on a bridge. He seemed to be wrapped in a sort of Your writing is more sophisticated than just telling loneliness but peacefulness, as well. That fit with a story. Have you had to work to attain this style, the ideas about which I was getting ready to write. or does it come naturally? Does it take a lot of revision to get that kind of complexity? TAR: One of the things that makes Mike Nelson appealing is that he has this intelligent, dry, but Kevin: That’s a nice list of names. I especially like dark sense of humor. As the narrator, the opportu- Ken Kesey. The writing does come kind of naturally

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 75 9/3/04, 9:18 AM now, but it didn’t when I first started writing. the right words. In isolation, it might not make a When I was writing stuff for adults, I was huge difference but throughout the whole book, the unpretentiously trying to write the great master- writer can pick words that create rhythms that piece, the great novel to show how good I was. But emphasize moods or feelings. That gives a work a you can lose track of the story that way. When I nice edge, and I try to take the time to get the started writing for and about teenagers, the story words right. became the main thing. You’ve got to write a good story first. I found that all the nice little bits of TAR: You mentioned Raymond Chandler as one of prose and poetry that I like in a piece could still go your influences. Are you an aficionado of the in, but they are almost like the garnish to the main detective story? course, which is the story. I’ve always loved really good writing, espe- Kevin: Yes, I’ve always liked that genre. I read a lot of cially good writing that includes a good story; that’s that sort of thing when I was young. Now I read the ideal—when great writing doesn’t get too much Lawrence Block, James Lee Burke, and people like in the way of the story. That’s what I have aimed to that. There are some really great crime writers, but do in my writing. I sometimes the crime itself isn’t the point, have to be a bit hard on myself it’s just a good device to create a and edit out stuff [I have When we’re all young we story. written] I like, passages that are I’m always looking for new really good writing but maybe all paint and we all write authors to read. Once I find an get in the way of the story. I’ve author I like, I actually wait for had to learn how to do editing and we all sing, but then them to write the next book. I like that with the help of my didn’t read Stephen King for a we reach a certain age publisher. I still enjoy the art of long time, then one day I gave words and style. when we’re told we have him a try and found that I loved his work. I don’t read horror as a TAR: Your word choice is masterful, to do it properly. If we genre, necessarily, and I don’t and sometimes you even invent really like the stuff solely based words like “hipponotic” and “a don’t do it properly, that is on monsters, but Stephen King nonfat smile.” The language of according to the formal writes really well. I think he your writing is enjoyable even writes a good story. I also just for its own sake. practices, then we’re told thought his book, On Writing, was one of the best books about Kevin: I enjoy writing in that to give it up. It’s a shame writing that I have ever read. fashion, and I never really because, although it can change the nuts and bolts of TAR: In On Writing Stephen King how I write. I may change the be good to learn to do says that when he writes, he has direction slightly depending on an imaginary ideal reader in the audience, but my basic things properly, there are mind and includes just as much structure and style remain the other ways to do them. As detail as he imagines that ideal same. I don’t change much. It reader would like to know. Do should be writing that could be long as you do something you have a sort of ideal reader, enjoyed by people of different an audience in mind when you ages. I do spend a lot of time passionately, how it write? picking the right words. It’s like comes out is just about as painting, in which you make Kevin: I suppose I do, but it’s the sure you get the right shades; in good as any other way. teenage version of me. The writing, you make sure you get teenage me has never really left;

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 76 9/3/04, 9:19 AM I think it stays with everyone over time. For Martyn true identity of the chatters, which is fair enough. Pig, Kissing the Rain and Lucas, I was kind of There’s also an advantage to chat rooms, however, writing for the teenage person in me. When I’m in that people who are lonely, people who don’t writing adult stuff, I suppose I am writing to the have any friends or anyone to talk to, can talk to adult part of me. people online, which is probably a good thing. One good thing about all the writing that has TAR: You and Stephen King share a talent for going come as a result of the Internet is the passion and inside the minds of your characters and revealing honesty in the writing. When we’re all young we their inner thoughts. It seems to facilitate the all paint and we all write and we all sing, but then reader’s identification with that character. How we reach a certain age when we’re told we have to does that work? do it properly. If we don’t do it properly, that is according to the formal practices, then we’re told to Kevin: It can work at many levels. When you’ve got give it up. It’s a shame because, although it can be something that’s really bothering you and you can’t good to learn to do things properly, there are other really express it or talk about it with other people, ways to do them. As long as you do something you may think you’re the only bloke in the world passionately, how it comes out is just about as who has this issue, but suddenly you come across good as any other way. When young people are somebody else who voices it, and you think, “I’m talking on their weblogs, they are expressing not the only one in the world.” That helps you as a themselves passionately; they’re just communicat- sort of friendship, and a friendship is formed with ing naturally without trying to be like everybody that character. else. They just want to be themselves. I think it’s Young boys, for example, might talk about sex, really good. I think it’s a good outlet. but they’ll never talk about love with each other. They never discuss love with their friends; it just TAR: Your mother is still living in England. How does isn’t done. You fall in love with someone and can’t she feel about your success? tell anyone, and it’s like a volcano inside you. You can’t talk about it, so what do you do with it? Kevin: She’s quite happy for me but not entirely surprised because I was a pretty good student in TAR: Speaking of the communication practices of school, including university. today’s youth, what effect do you think the Internet has had on the writing practices and skills of young Kevin Brooks lives in the small town of Maningtree in people, especially emailing and web logging? Essex. He and his wife, Susan, have been together for over 20 years. They have a retriever/collie cross named Jess, Kevin: In some quarters, there’s a fear that although and a new puppy named Shaky, whom Kevin describes as many young people are using immediate messaging “a lurcher, six-months old, a bit mad but very nice.” Kevin’s fourth book, Candy, is finished and due out next and using it quite frequently, they aren’t necessarily year. He is working on a fifth one at the moment. He also writing with grammatical correctness. But you have has a small novel, Bloodline, coming out in August to say that they are writing far more than they used through Barrington Stoke, an Edinburgh publisher with a to, and that’s a very good thing, I think. specialty in books for reluctant readers. He has a short Chat rooms have some good and bad issues, as story, “Dumb Chocolate Eyes,” in an anthology called well. I don’t know about the United States, but in Thirteen coming soon from Orchard. If that is not enough, the UK, there’s been a big clamp down on chat Kevin has also been working on a screenplay version of rooms because of the danger of not knowing the his first YA novel, Martyn Pig.

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

n72-77_TAR_Summer04 77 9/3/04, 9:19 AM M. Jerry Weiss The Publisher’s Connection

Connecting the Past and the Present

Unusual and Great who lived in the town. When all Attention, ALAN Members! was done, the committee of five ichael Osnato, former It doesn’t matter what your was given the funds raised to buy superintendent of schools political persuasion is, I think all books, and lots of books were of Montclair, New Jersey, should read Richard A. Clarke’s M added to the elementary and was instrumental in organizing a Against All Enemies, Simon & middle schools and the high school. committee of local citizens, teach- Schuster, 2004. If anything, this Every cent raised by this initiative ers, administrators, parents, and book will provoke thought and was given to the committee to members of The Montclair Fund for discussion about world events, spend. And did they buy good and Educational Excellence, to become especially terrorism. Very few are new books! All of these were trade a part of The Children’s Literature attacking Clarke’s concerns with and reference books. Teachers and Initiative. This group was to come protecting the homeland. Little students used these books as an up with ideas to raise funds for evidence has shown up anywhere integral part of their daily activities buying books for all of the libraries that discounts most of the serious and even as part of the curriculum. in the Montclair public schools. events that led up to 9/11. Whether By the way, I attended all of Most of the members were on the or not you agree with President the spelling bees, and I did well on fund-raising part of the committee. Bush’s decision to go to war with the first three words. After that, I Five members were on the book Iraq, you will have to look at some could hardly pronounce the words. selection committee that instead of of the events that led to this Books to study the potential word who worked with the teachers and decision. Students need to know we list were provided to each team. librarians to find out the schools’ live in a political world and that the What fun. What a good cause in needs and interests. Over the United States is a part of that these times when libraries are course of four years, more than world. (This is not a simple suffering from severe cut backs. $200,000 was raised from grants, statement.) We are a society of The new superintendent, Dr. gifts, and an adult spelling bee. many creeds and religious beliefs. Frank Alvarez, has decided to keep Competition in the adult We have many values. War stories the movement going, and he has spelling bee consisted of teams of have filled our shelves and we organized a good committee to three opposing other similar teams. know from books such as Stephen meet the challenge. There may not There were realtor teams, doctor Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, be a spelling bee every year, but teams, teacher teams, teams of (Signet Classic), and John Wilson’s some activity will be set forth to local citizens, women teams, men And in the Morning, (Kids Can raise a lot of money to keep the teams, etc. Each year over 60 teams Press), the price, horrors, fears, libraries well staffed with new titles entered, paying three hundred unexpected events of wars. If and to keep the publishers, teach- dollars per team in order to partici- English teachers are involved in ers, students, and librarians happy. pate. Word callers were celebrities teaching historical fiction, they will

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

o78_80TAR_Summer04 78 9/3/04, 9:17 AM find plenty of good writers, such as nutritious. Another group chal- Museum of Art and Henry Holt); Ann Rinaldi, Cast Two Shadows, lenged the use of the word “nutri- Getting to Know You: Rogers and (Harcourt); Avi, The Fighting tious” and indicated some people Hammerstein Favorites, illustrated Ground, (Harper Trophy); Harry have allergic reactions to them (2). by Rosemary Wells (Harper Turtledove, Gunpowder Empire, Another issue dealt with quilting in Collins); All Night, All Day: A (Tor); Maureen Garvie and Mary the mid-nineteenth century, some Child’s First Book of African- Beaty, George Johnson’s War, members on the screening commit- American Spirituals, selected and (Groundwood); L. M. Elliott, Under tee objected because this view, illustrated by Ashley Bryan a War-torn Sky, (Hyperion); Pete although historically accurate, it (Aladdin); Cats: The Book of the Nelson, Left for Dead, (Delacorte); “contained stereotypes of females Musical, music by Andrew Lloyd Nelly S. Toll, Behind the Secret as ‘soft’ and ‘submissive.’” Weber, based on Old Possum’s Book Window,( Puffin)); Kevin Coyne, The list goes on and on, of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot Marching Home, (Viking); Tamar including challenges to a story (Faber/The Really Useful Com- Bergman, Along the Tracks, about Mount Rushmore, the pany); Rogers and Hammerstein’s In (Houghton Mifflin); Uri Orlev, Run, environment, a selfish rich baker, My Own Little Corner of the World, Boy, Run, (Houghton Mifflin); H. and an arrogant king— just a few illustrated by Katherine Potter Bruce Franklin’s collection, The among other issues. (Simon & Schuster); Rodgers and Viet Nam War in American Stories, Of course, in the last issue of Hammerstein’s My Favorite Things, Songs and Poems, (Bedford Books/ The ALAN Review I mentioned lots illustrated by Renee Grant (Harper St. Martin’s Press); Esther Forbes, of categories and books that Collins); God Bless America, words Johnny Tremain, (Houghton probably would warrant a chal- and music by Irving Berlin, illustra- Mifflin); Jerry Spinelli, Milkweed, lenge, but there is a large group out tions by Lynn Munsinger, Summer- (Knopf); James Bradley, Flags of there that wants students to get an time, from Porgy and Bess, by Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima, education void of anything that is George Gershwin, DuBose and (Delacorte); Walter Dean Myers, controversial. Notice how many Dorthy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin, Fallen Angels, (Scholastic); Milton biographies really avoid sensitive paintings by Mike Wimmer Meltzer’s collection, Hour of issues about the personal doings of (Aladdin); Easter Parade by Irving Freedom: American History in our nation’s leaders. We now know Berlin, illustrated by Lisa McCue Poetry, (Boyds Mills Press); June A. that Jefferson and Washington had (Harper Collins); I Hear America English and Thomas D. Jones, slaves, and Jefferson even slept Singing: Folk Songs for American Scholastic Encyclopedia of the with at least one. Read Jefferson’s Families , collected and arranged by United States at War, (Scholastic); Children: The Story of One Ameri- Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Alien and Liz Sonneborn The American can Family by Shannon Lanier and Garns (Knopf); Over the Rainbow, West: An Illustrated History, Jane Feldman, (Random House). by E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen, (Scholastic). These are just a few of illustrated by Julia Noonan (Harper the many books that can be used to Sing a Song Collins). Having each student select stimulate thinking and discussion. a favorite song and illustrate it with Of course, we all know that the Another book that deserves drawings or photographs is a lyrics of all songs are poems. What reading is The Language Police: worthwhile project. What a way to a great way to get students hooked How Pressure Groups Restrict What start a poetry unit. Then continue on the wonders of poems. Among Students Learn, by Diane Ravitch, with such books as: Is This Forever, some interesting books that have (Knopf). Both right and left political or What? Poems and Paintings from been published in recent years are: wings exert pressure on book Texas, selected by Naomi Shihab Go In and Out the Window: An companies regarding what should Nye (Greenwillow); Paint Me Like I Illustrated Songbook for Young be included in texts. Some ex- Am: Teen Poems from the People, music arranged and edited amples include: (1) The use of Writerscorps (Harper Tempest); by Dan Fox, and commentary by “peanuts to be included” is because Eve’s Red Dress, by Diane Lockward Claude Marks, (The Metropolitan one group stated that peanuts are (Wind Publishers); The Poetry

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

o78_80TAR_Summer04 79 9/3/04, 9:17 AM Invisible Ladder, edited by Liz Books); Poems for Homeroom: A Blushing, Expressions of Love in Rosenberg (Henry Holt); Wham! Place to Start, by Kathi Appelt Poems and Letters, collected by Paul It’s a Poetry Jam: Discovering (Henry Holt); Wherever Home Janeczko (Orchard); Singing Performance Poetry, by Sara Begins: I00 Contemporary Poems, America: Poems that Define a Holbrook (Wordsong/Boyds Mills selected by Paul Janeczko (Orchard Nation, edited by Neil Philip, Press); The Body Electric, edited by Books); Words Afire, by Paul illustrated by Michael McCurdy Patrice Vecchione (Henry Holt); Janeczko (Candlewick Press); Heart (Viking); and Dream Makers: Young Truth and Lies, edited by Patrice to Heart: New Poems Inspired by People Share Their Hopes and Vecchione (Henry Holt); Whisper Twentieth Century American Art, Aspirations, selected and illustrated and Shout: Poems to Memorize, edited by Jan Greenberg (Abrams); by Neil Waldman (Boyds Mills edited by Patrice Vecchione (Cricket Jinx by Margaret Wild (Walker); Press).

THE ALAN REVIEW Summer 2004

o78_80TAR_Summer04 80 9/3/04, 9:17 AM